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YELLOW STAR 



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“ I seem to be just in time, again, Stella,” was all he said. 
Frontispiece. See page 265. 


YELLOW STAR 


A STORY OF EAST AND WEST 


BY 


ELAINE GOODALE EASTMAN 

Author of “Wigwam Evenings,” “Little 
Brother o’ Dreams,” etc. 


With Illustrations by 
ANGEL DE CORA 

AND 

WILLIAM LONE STAR 


BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
1911 




Copyright , 1911, 

By Little, Brown, and Company. 

All rights reserved 


Published, September, 1911 




Electrotyped and Printed by 
THE COLONIAL PRESS 
C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U.S.A. 


©CLA295624 

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ft- 


TO WINONA. 

(mount HOLYOKE, 1914 .) 

Dark eyes, that drew their mingled fires 
From native kings, and Pilgrim sires, 
And fused within one glowing breast 
The ardors of the East and West, — 

Child of the prairie’s generous sweep. 
Your tryst with grave Minerva keep, 

Yet first on Wisdom’s roll you’ll find 
The sacred love of humankind ! 




























I 




I 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


PAGE 

I. 

Laurel Folks 

3 

II. 

The Girl from Dakota 

20 

III. 

A Lesson in History .... 

33 

IV. 

The-One-Who-was-left- Alive . 

46 

V. 

In Wolcott’s Woods .... 

63 

VI. 

A Wild West Performance 

76 

VII. 

Behind the Scenes .... 

88 

VIII. 

The Right Stuff 

99 

IX. 

Glimpses of Old America . 

112 

X. 

Nobody’s Little Girl .... 

130 

XI. 

Just Friends 

146 

XII. 

Herbs and Simples .... 

159 

XIII. 

Indian Hospitality .... 

176 

XIV. 

An End and a Beginning . 

193 

XV. 

The Scene Shifts 

207 

XVI. 

By Return of Post .... 

222 

XVII. 

“ Pray for my People when the Sun 



Goes Down ” 

238 

XVIII. 

Facing the Sunrise .... 

255 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


“ I SEEM TO BE JUST IN TIME, AGAIN, 

Stella,” was all he said . . Frontispiece 

A GIRLISH FIGURE SWUNG DOWN OUT OF 
THE OLD APPLE - TREE AND DROPPED 
LIGHTLY UPON ITS FEET . . . PAGE 16 

HE WAS QUIET, EVEN FOR AN INDIAN 
baby; unnaturally quiet, she 

THOUGHT “88 

“ I WAS ONLY DIGGING MEDICINE,” THE 

ELF SOBERLY ANNOUNCED . . “ 209 














































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































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YELLOW STAR 





















































































































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YELLOW STAR 

CHAPTER I 

LAUREL FOLKS 

I T was four o'clock of a hot September 
afternoon, and the buzz of twenty 
girls released from school filled the 
close room with a sibilant overflow, much 
like the gossip of bees in a blossoming 
elder-bush. The boys had already gone 
clattering down the stairs to the ball- 
field, and the little maids of the highest 
grammar grade demurely prepared to 
follow, sipping the sweets of freedom with 
more of leisurely enjoyment, in true 
feminine fashion. 

A long, thin girl of thirteen or so, in a 
starched blue gingham frock nearly to 


4 


YELLOW STAR 


her sharp knees, who looked somehow as 
if blown straight forward by a strong 
wind, and a plump bud of a fair-haired 
damsel in pink, stood close together in an 
eddy of the murmuring stream. 

“ I don’t think it’s fair, Doris; no, I 
don’t! ” were the long girl’s first words, 
earnestly spoken, as she tossed the lank 
locks back from her eager face with a 
characteristic gesture. 

“ Don’t think what’s fair? ” queried 
Doris, serenely. “ Oh, Sin, you’ve 
dropped your glasses! ” 

“ Bother the glasses — you know what 
I mean. That wild Indian girl from the 
‘ land of the Ojibways,’ or wherever it is; 
they say she’s coming to our school, and 
the girls will make her life one long 
misery, just because she wears a red 
blanket, prob’ly, and a feather or two 
in her straight, black hair — ” 

“ You don’t know what you’re talking 


LAUREL FOLKS 


5 


about, Sin Parker. She never wore a 
blanket in her life, so there! ” 

“ Why — why — isn’t she a sure- 
’nough Indian, then, after all? ” stam- 
mered romance-loving Cynthia, dropping 
the glasses again in her excitement. 
“ And how do you happen to know so 
much about it, Doris Brown? ” 

“ Well, I do know; mother was out 
calling yesterday afternoon, and she’s 
heard all about it. I expect she’s over at 
the Spellman house now. You see, it’s 
this way. ...” And the two girls, with 
arms about each other’s waists and 
absorbed faces, drifted through the big 
doors in their turn and followed a chatter- 
ing, fluttering throng down the wide, elm- 
lined village street. 

In the prim parlor of an old New Eng- 
land homestead, watched over by the 
ghostly crayon portraits of departed 


6 


YELLOW STAR 


ancestors, the fate of the brown-skinned 
little stranger was equally the topic of 
discussion. 

Mrs. Brown, a stout, motherly lady in 
a creaking black silk, had timed her call 
neatly for the second day after the arrival 
from the west of Miss Spellman’s widowed 
sister, whose husband had lived for twenty 
years as a missionary among the Indians, 
and her unusual charge. 

“ No, I was never in favor of bringing 
the child to Laurel. I strongly advised 
Lucy to place her at once in one of the 
excellent Government boarding-schools 
for Indian children. I understand that 
they are everything that could be desired 
for a girl in her position — clean and well- 
managed — the common branches thor- 
oughly taught, together with housework 
and sewing.” 

Miss Sophia spoke with her usual 
positiveness in that hard, clear-cut voice 


LAUREL FOLKS 


7 


of hers, raising her white, aquiline profile 
a trifle against the shadowy background 
of her ancestral “ best room.” 

“ Why, sister,” pleaded gentle Mrs. 
Waring, almost tearfully, “ I could no 
more have left my little girl in one of those 
big, bare, whitewashed barracks . . . 
to eat coarse food off thick stoneware 
in a noisy dining-room ... to sleep with 
fifty other girls in a dormitory where the 
beds almost touch . . . she’s not used 
to anything like that! I tell you, the 
child is as sensitive as you or I. ” 

“ I must beg of you, Lucy, not to 
mention my name in any such connec- 
tion,” interposed her sister. “ It would 
certainly seem that a school expressly 
provided for just such girls as Yellow 
Star — or whatever her ridiculous name 
is — must be the proper place for her. 
However, you were determined to bring 
her home with you, and you have had 


8 


YELLOW STAR 


your way. It remains to be seen what 
will come of it. . . . Let me fill your 
glass, Emmeline. ” 

“ No, thank you, Sophia,” murmured 
good Mrs. Brown, hastily finishing her 
iced tea, and setting the thin, frosted 
goblet with its bits of shaved lemon peel 
on the silver tray at her hostess’s elbow. 
Sophia certainly did have a positive gift 
for making folks uncomfortable. “ I 
surely do hope,” she plucked up courage 
to add, “ that Yellow Star will do well 
in Laurel, and be happy with us, now that 
she is here.” 

“ We call her Stella,” faltered Mrs. 
Waring. It seemed wiser ...” (here 
Miss Sophia indulged in what might in a 
less aristocratic dame have been plainly 
called a sniff) . . . “ wiser not to retain 
anything that might tend to make her 
needlessly conspicuous — ” 

“ Oh, I see! ‘ Stella ’ — that’s very 


LAUREL FOLKS 


pretty. I understand you are sending 
her to grammar school? ” 

“ Stella will enter the eighth grade to- 
morrow,” Mrs. Waring answered, drawing 
courage from the delicate sympathy con- 
veyed in her old friend’s soft, purring 
tones. “ She is nearly fourteen, and I 
want her to be thoroughly prepared for 
the academy next year.” 

“ Why, I’m surprised ! How ever did you 
manage it, Lucy? That’s my Doris’s grade 
— and Doris was fourteen last month.” 

u I have taught Stella myself up to 
now,” her adopted mother announced 
with modest pride, “ and a quicker or 
more willing pupil I never met with any- 
where. Yes, I’ve talked with the super- 
intendent; he questioned her himself; 
and he says she could get into the acad- 
emy this fall, he thinks, but advises a 
year in the grades to give her more con- 
fidence and lay a better foundation.” 


10 


YELLOW STAR 


“ Foundation for what — can any one 
tell me that? ” Miss Sophia had been 
silent an unusually long time, for her. 
“ Fm afraid my sister hasn’t considered 
that to educate the child above her 
station in life and out of sympathy with 
her own people will only lead to her un- 
happiness in the end. If you would only 
take my advice, Lucy, before it’s too late, 
and train the child for a little maid — 
since you will have her with you — in- 
stead of spoiling her as you do. . . .” 

“ Stella is my little girl, sister,” in- 
terrupted the gentle Lucy, with the 
unexpected daring of some timid animal 
brought to bay. “ She shall share what- 
ever I have, and for as long as I live. 
Please remember that she hasn’t a blood 
relation in the world, so far as she knows, 
and is perfectly free to live anywhere. I 
intend to give her a good education — 
just as good as she can take, or as I 


LAUREL FOLKS 


11 


would have given my own daughter, if I 
had one — and the rest is in God’s 
hands — and her own!” , 

There was a minute’s tense silence. 
Then Miss Sophia ostentatiously began 
a conversation on quite another subject 
with her subdued caller, who wanted 
nothing so much just then as to catch a 
glimpse of the unconscious bone of con- 
tention, but simply dared not ask in so 
many words to see Yellow Star. 

Lucy sat back in her chair with her 
thin hands squeezed tightly together, 
trying hard to recover her composure. 
It was quite true that Sophia had op- 
posed from the first her purpose to adopt 
and educate the child, and had yielded 
ungraciously enough in the end, merely 
because she had exhausted her weapons. 
There were but the two sisters left, and 
the homestead belonged to them equally. 
Mr. Waring had died the year before, 


12 


YELLOW STAR 


leaving only the few hundred dollars that 
represented a missionary’s scanty savings. 
It was entirely natural and right that his 
widow should come home to live, and 
quite impossible for her to leave behind 
the waif whom she had picked up in the 
Indian camp some eight or nine years 
earlier, and had taken fully into her heart 
and home. Her dear husband had loved 
and believed in the child, just as she did. 
Yes, Sophia was making it very hard for 
her, who shrank unspeakably from any- 
thing like a contest of wills; yet the 
purpose with which she had come back 
to the old home was unshaken. 

As Lucy sat there, struggling with 
painful thoughts and oblivious to the 
murmur of civil conversation, her quick 
eye caught a flash of white — evidently 
a slip of folded paper that some one had 
slid in the crack of the closed door. She 
hastily left her chair, and with her 


LAUREL FOLKS 


13 


sister’s cold gray eye upon her, secured 
the paper and slipped out of the room 
with it in her hand, for it was naturally 
impossible to open it under that fire of 
suspicious and almost hostile glances. 
The hall was empty, and she dropped 
down on a haircloth covered davenport 
and read: 

“ Mother Dear: I’ve ‘done every- 
thing you said unpackt my things put 
them away ironed the napkins put on 
a clean frock for tea and set the table. 
I just have to go out in the orchard and 
think awhile. I wanted dreadfully to 
pick some flowers but Aunt said not to 
and I’m not going to. If you want me 
for anything you can find me in Apple- 
Tree Row next the Fence. I call it my 
House. Your Little Girl.” 

This writing of unnecessary notes was 
a harmless fancy of Yellow Star’s, that 


14 YELLOW STAR 

her foster-mother had not had the heart 
to correct. She had had so few play- 
mates on the reservation — for she 
wasn’t allowed to play with the camp 
children, and it had happened that but 
one of the agency people had a little 
girl of suitable age and irreproachable 
propriety — that she had been really 
obliged to invent most of her own 
amusements. And then, too, Lucy had 
told herself that “ the child couldn’t 
have too much practice in English.” 

But the “ silly trick,” as Miss Sophia 
called it, had already been a source of 
some disquiet in the ill-assorted little 
household of three. Perhaps she had 
better give the child a hint. And 
Sophia had contemptuously repudiated 
the title of “ Aunt,” so naturally be- 
stowed on the only sister of the only 
mother that little Yellow Star had ever 
known. “ None of that nonsense for 


LAUREL FOLKS 


15 


me,” she had declared. “ I haven’t 
adopted the child! ” 

“ I suppose I’ll have to tell her not to 
say it any more . . . and she’ll think 
it so strange,” mused poor Lucy rue- 
fully enough, foreseeing many trials for 
her darling, as she gathered up her nice 
black skirt and made her way as daintily 
as a cat along the box-bordered walk, 
past the grape arbor and the tidy kitchen 
garden into the grassy old apple orchard. 
She seldom went out-of-doors, except 
for church, or calling, or shopping, or on 
some entirely rational errand. It was 
perhaps the only trait of Stella’s that 
she vaguely disapproved — this craze 
to be off and into all sorts of outlandish 
places. Where under the canopy was 
she now? There was the last row of 
trees bending with red and yellow fruit, 
at the further end of the orchard, and 
no sign of her. 


16 


YELLOW STAR 


Everything was warm and sweet and 
very still. Only the invisible choir of 
crickets made silence musical, and a 
flaming torch of goldenrod beside the 
crumbling old stone wall seemed ready 
to light the summer’s funeral pyre. Not 
that Lucy Waring thought of it in just 
that way, but possibly Stella’s dreams 
and fancies might have been so trans- 
lated. 

Perhaps it had not been quite polite 
to leave the house so abruptly before 
their guest had taken her leave. She had 
forgotten . . . ought she to go back at 
once? But where could the child be? 
she wondered. As she stood hesitating, 
a low, sweet call made her look quickly 
up, and next instant a girlish figure 
swung down out of the old apple-tree 
and dropped lightly upon its feet. 

Hair of a dense blue-black was neatly 
braided and tied up with red ribbon that 



A girlish figure swung down out of the old apple-tree and 
dropped lightly upon its feet. Page 16 . 


LAUREL FOLKS 


17 


matched the red plaid in her irreproach- 
able gingham frock; a faint sort of under- 
glow warmed the smooth, brown skin; a 
something spirited about the carriage of 
the well-shaped head and a singular 
directness in the glance of the soft, black 
eyes were the first things you noticed. 
Surely, this was no ordinary child. 

“ Oh, mother, mother! ” she cried, 
impulsively throwing her arms around 
the little lady’s neck. “ Isn’t it beautiful? 
Oh, I wish we had real grass and apple- 
trees in Dakota, don’t you? It wasn’t 
wrong to come out here, was it? Don’t 
say it was wrong, mother! Can’t this 
be my House to come out to when Miss 
Sophia doesn’t want me? I feel as if she 
didn’t want me; her house seems to 
push me right out somehow. And I’m 
terribly afraid of going to school; I’ve 
been thinking how perhaps the other 
girls won’t want me either. ” 


18 


YELLOW STAR 


“ You must be brave, darling,” qua- 
vered poor Mrs. Waring. “ Remember, 
this strangeness will all wear off very 
soon.” 

“ Oh, I shall be brave” burst out Yellow 
Star, letting her slender arms fall at her 
sides, and holding her jet-crowned head 
higher than ever. “ My people have 
always been brave, you know — so of 
course I have to be! And nobody at all 
will ever know how afraid I am . . . 
nobody but you, mother. 

“ That yellow-haired girl in the pink 
dress that just went up the straight path 
to the front door . . . there she comes 
down again with the stout lady with shiny 
black beads all over her bonnet and 
her tight, black waist — she looks just 
like some kind of large, shining beetle, 
doesn’t she ? — well, my heart beats 
so it shakes me all over when I even 
think of going up and speaking to that 


LAUREL FOLKS 


19 


girl in pink! I think she’s perfectly 
beautiful — and I’m terribly afraid of 
her — but she’ll never guess how I feel. 
There’s one thing I have to tell you, 
though,” she added in a more subdued 
voice. “ I find I can’t call Miss Sophia 
‘ Aunt ’ any more. Do you think you’ll 
mind very much, mother? I’m almost 
certain she can’t be any real relation.” 


CHAPTER II 


THE GIRL FROM DAKOTA 

L UCY WARING had no warriors’ 
blood that she knew of to fall 
back upon, so perhaps it was 
partly her long association with the stoics 
of the plains that made it possible for her 
to turn over her little girl to the “ new 
teacher/’ the very next day, with the stiff 
smile of her New England forebears under 
social duress — to drag her eyes away 
from the wild, despairing courage of 
Yellow Star’s great black ones — to 
walk quite steadily out of the door and 
down the long flight of wooden steps and 
along the drowsy village street, without 
even a backward look to share or soften 
the imaginary terrors of School. 

These took no worse form, just at first, 


THE GIRL FROM DAKOTA 21 

than the curious but not unfriendly 
stares of forty-two pairs of critical young 
eyes, and the penetrating susurrus of 
forty-two edged voices, all of which the 
Indian girl felt with a pricking and 
tingling anguish in every fiber of her 
sensitive body, as she sat rigid in a 
front seat, directly facing the teacher’s 
desk. 

Then the second bell rang, and there 
was a hush. As soon as she could, after 
opening exercises, Miss Morrison sup- 
plied the new pupil with pen and ink and 
the usual blank for the school record. It 
looked something like this: 

Your name in full. 

Date of birth. Year, month and day. 

Name of father. 

Father’s occupation. 

School previously attended. 

What grade were you in? 


22 


YELLOW STAR 


A wild glance down the length of the 
paper made it certain that her worst 
fears had been promptly realized, and 
poor Stella, after setting down her new 
name, Stella Waring, sat staring at the 
other five questions, fairly tense with 
nervous dread, until her busy teacher 
had found time to note the situation. 
Then she bent over the girl from Dakota 
and asked very kindly, in a low voice: 

“ Why don’t you put down your age 
and your father’s name, Stella? ” 

“ I do not know my date of birth, year, 
month and day; I do not know my 
father’s name and occupation, and I 
never went to school before,” she re- 
plied in tones sharpened by fright, so that 
they rang through the crowded school- 
room, causing an audible gasp of as- 
tonishment. 

“ Why, I was certainly told that you 
belonged here,” wondered Miss Morrison; 


THE GIRL FROM DAKOTA 23 

then, with ready tact divining something 
of the girl's embarrassment: 

“ Never mind about the questions just 
now. This is our lesson for to-day; look 
it over, please, and be prepared to stand 
and read when I call upon you." 

This Stella could do, and knew she 
could. Abundant time was given to 
recover herself; then the paragraph as- 
signed was read, if somewhat slowly and 
with the faintest trace of foreign accent, 
yet distinctly, and with more delicacy 
of modulation than perhaps any other 
in that room could command. 

“ Very good, indeed," approved Miss 
Morrison; and this time the slight buzz 
sounded almost like encouragement, and 
the pricking and tingling were less ago- 
nizing than before. 

When the others passed out at recess, 
Stella remained in her seat at a sign from 
the teacher, who sat down beside her and 


24 


YELLOW STAR 


bent her violet-scented brown head sym- 
pathetically toward her singular but far 
from unattractive new pupil. 

“ About the age, dear,” she began, ten- 
tatively, “ surely you must know. ...” 

a I am supposed to be thirteen years 
old, Miss Morrison, but I have not any 
birthday. Mother — I mean Mrs. War- 
ing — always makes me a birthday cake 
on the nineteenth of February, because 
she says it is so $ort of lonesome not to 
have a birthday. But I do not know 
really , so of course I could not put it 
down on the paper. You see, I ... I 
was found ! I never heard my father’s 
name or my mother’s name either — 
nobody knows who they were.” 

Here the clear voice got somehow 
muffled, and the warm-hearted teacher 
hastily assured her that it didn’t mat- 
ter one bit about the questions — 
she had had no idea — and impulsively 


THE GIRL FROM DAKOTA 25 

she took the hated paper out of the little 
girl’s sensitive brown hand. 

It might have been as well if Lucy 
Waring had explained matters somewhat 
before her abrupt departure; but the 
truth was that she had strung her diffi- 
cult courage to the necessary point of 
leaving the child to her own resources 
in this strange, and possibly unfriendly, 
new environment. The effort had carried 
her to a really unnecessary extreme; she 
had forgotten that Yellow Star’s personal 
history was as yet quite unknown in 
Laurel. 

Miss Morrison felt the incident to be a 
touching one. She even reproached her- 
self for thoughtless adherence to routine, 
and during the rest of the morning gave 
a quite unusual degree of attention to 
her new charge. It appeared that Stella 
had the correct eye and delicate hand of 
her race; she was an excellent penman; 


26 YELLOW STAR 

she had been well drilled in the essentials. 
More: she was eager, alert, intense — 
quick to spring upon an idea as a cat 
upon its prey. 

Most of the children went home at 
noon, and no sooner was school dismissed 
than Cynthia Parker, whose near-sighted 
brown eyes had been turned anxiously, 
half maternally toward the stranger, at 
the cost of frequent, though not un- 
usual, blunders in her own recitations, 
darted to her side and began to speak 
rapidly. 

“ I know who you are; Doris Brown 
told me; she’s that yellow-haired girl in 
pink — see! she’s looking this way. My 
name’s Cynthia Parker and I hope 
we’ll be friends — I read everything I 
can get hold of about Indians — mother 
says I’m just like one. Do you like 
dogs? ” And almost before Stella could 
find breath to reply, in her pretty, 


THE GIRL FROM DAKOTA 27 

precise English, that she did, Sin had 
taken up the tale. 

“ Eve got two — that’s the big one 
waiting for me outside — his name’s 
Sir Walter Scott, but we call him Scotty 
for short. Here, Scotty, old fellow! ” 
And as the gaunt hound rushed upon 
them both, nearly knocking them down 
in his eagerness, she threw her arms 
around his homely neck and hugged him 
with an unaffected ardor that quite 
warmed the new girl’s heart. 

“ Let’s walk slowly and get behind; 
can we? ” she whispered, shyly. “ They 
do look at us so! ” In fact, there was 
unwonted lingering that day, and much 
open whispering, which the three pre- 
tended to ignore. Doris had waited, as 
usual, and joined them at the door. 

“ Of course we can; nobody has dinner 
till half past twelve, and it’s only five 
minutes’ walk to your house,” she as- 


28 


YELLOW STAR 


sented, pleasantly, while Cynthia bluntly 
remarked: 

“ They’re awfully disappointed, you 
know, because you didn’t wear your 
Indian suit to-day — a blanket and 
feathers in your hair. Why, you look 
almost exactly like anybody else, in that 
nice, brown linen.” 

“ Indian girls don’t wear feathers; 
only the men do that,” smiled the new 
girl, who much preferred to “ look like 
anybody else,” and found personalities 
a bit embarrassing, x Still, she was feeling 
a good deal better in the company of her 
new-found friends. 

“ Then do they all wear pretty blouses 
and stylish hats? ” Sin unblushingly 
inquired. 

“ Well, there aren’t many of the old- 
style dresses left among the Sioux — my 
people. Why, a blanket robe trimmed 
with real elks’ teeth, or one of beaded 


THE GIRL FROM DAKOTA 29 

doeskin, is worth a hundred dollars! 
Besides, nearly all the girls go to school 
nowadays, and wear dresses and hats 
like mine, — only not quite so pretty, 
perhaps, because my dear mother made 
these and she has such good taste.” 
ended Stella, loyally and lovingly. 

“ Mrs. Waring is perfectly lovely, I 
think,” began Doris, tactfully, but sud- 
denly broke off with a little cry of dismay. 

“ Oh, Sin! whose dog is that? Hadn’t 
you better get the chain on Scotty? ” 
Alas, the warning came too late! The 
strange dog had already offered some 
nameless canine impertinence to Sir Wal- 
ter, whose temper was none of the most 
patient. Instantly he hurled himself upon 
the new-comer, and the fight was on. 

The three girls had purposely loitered, 
and the quiet street was almost deserted. 
It was the universal dinner hour, and 
boys and girls were rapidly disappearing 


30 


YELLOW STAR 


down various side streets, urged home- 
wards by the double spur of sharp young 
appetites and savory odors of “ mother’s 
cooking.” 

“Help! help!” screamed Sin, and 
forthwith flung herself with more valor 
than discretion upon the wallowing mass 
in the middle of the dusty road. 

Doris grew very white, as she set her 
back to the hedge, drew her spotless 
skirts tightly around her, and earnestly 
begged her friend to “be careful! ” But 
heedless, brave, loving Sin, crying loudly 
now and terribly alarmed for Scotty’s 
safety, persisted in wild and none too 
prudent attempts to drag him bodily 
forth from the fray. The strange dog 
had fastened viciously upon his throat, 
and the fight began to look serious. 
Why didn’t some one come? 

In that very minute some one did, 
and the “ some one ” was no other than 


THE GIRL FROM DAKOTA 31 

the girl from Dakota. She had broken 
a stout switch from an apple-tree that 
overhung the sidewalk near at hand, 
and was belaboring the strange dog in a 
steady, business-like fashion, at the same 
time calling him off in ringing tones, and 
in a language that he evidently under- 
stood, if her astonished classmates did 
not. 

“ Kigela! kigela! ” they thought they 
heard her say, over and over; and 
whether the strange words composed a 
sort of charm or secret incantation for 
dogs, or whether it was some compelling 
power in the personality of the black- 
haired girl, or merely the flail-like regu- 
larity of her vigorous blows, it is certain 
at any rate that he soon let go his hold, 
and ran yelping away. 

Sir Walter, gallantly scrambling to his 
long legs and shaking his bleeding but 
still warlike head, would gladly have 


32 


YELLOW STAR 


followed, but was forcibly restrained by 
his disheveled mistress, who had con- 
trived at last to snap the chain upon his 
collar, and while breathlessly dragging 
him homewards, did not forget to call 
back over her shoulder in broken phrases 
her admiring gratitude to Yellow Star. 


CHAPTER III 


A LESSON IN HISTORY 

T HE square north parlor of the 
century-old Spellman homestead 
was furnished with few conces- 
sions to modern taste. In summer it was 
carefully darkened, and during the colder 
months exhaled that penetrating chill 
that is still more or less characteristic of 
the traditional “ best room ” in rural 
New England. There was also a mingled 
odor of sanctity and dried rose-leaves that 
filled the soul of the young exile with a 
secret awe. She understood perfectly that 
children were not expected to enter that 
room uninvited; even the family re- 
served it for occasions of ceremony; and 
it was with a thrill of conscious guilt 


34 


YELLOW STAR 


overborne by an irresistible attraction, 
that she had stolen in alone on this keen 
October morning before Miss Sophia was 
up, and while her sister was capably en- 
gaged in preparing breakfast in the large, 
cheery kitchen. 

It was not the ornaments, wonderful 
as they were, upon the high mantel-piece 
— the pallid wax flowers under glass, the 
waving pampas plumes and pink-lined 
tropic shells dear to romance — no, 
not even the mysterious closed piano — 
it was those ghostly crayon portraits in 
their tarnished gilt frames that drew this 
little unrelated fragment of humanity 
with a fascination that she did not in the 
least understand. She only knew that 
to gaze upon their white, shrouded faces 
was to yearn for even the staring, pic- 
tured counterparts, even the chill, clus- 
tered gravestones of her own vanished 
forebears. Vanished, indeed, since not 


A LESSON IN HISTORY 35 

even a name or a memory remained to 
their wistful and solitary descendant! 

And these Spellmans and Russells — 
these revered ancestors of her dear 
“ Mother ” Waring as of the thorny and 
unapproachable Miss Sophia — their by- 
gone greatness had been so impressed 
upon her by allusion and suggestion that 
in the secret world of her imagination it 
reached heroic proportions. So this child 
of two races, the one by birth, the other 
by associations quite as real and vital, 
well-nigh forgot the shadowy demi-gods 
of her people while she bowed at the shrine 
of the commonplace county Judge who 
was the greatest of all the Russells, and 
fancied a beauty as of the moon and stars 
in the conventional portraits of his wife 
and daughters, with their uncovered 
necks and pallid, simpering faces. 

Only a few stolen moments of gazing, 
and Stella crossed the dark hall on noise- 


36 


YELLOW STAR 


less feet — for even in the black-leather 
boxes of civilization she had contrived 
to keep her native lightness of step — 
and softly opened the dining-room door. 

With its cheerful morning sunshine 
streaming over the chromoed walls and 
gayly-carpeted floor, and with the canary 
singing his prettiest in the south window, 
above the row of thrifty geraniums and 
begonias, this room was the strongest 
possible contrast to the gloomy one she 
had just left behind. Ah! and that very 
minute the wonderful bird came out of 
the clock on the mantel-piece and seven 
times called “ Cuckoo! ” while, as if in 
answer to the call, the door into the 
kitchen opened, letting in the heartsome 
odor of frying ham and eggs, and Mother 
Waring with the smoking coffee-pot. 

Stella flew to bring the dish of oatmeal 
and the hot plates, and then busied her- 
self with the neat tray that was regularly 


A LESSON IN HISTORY 37 

carried up to Miss Sophia’s chamber 
with her morning coffee and toast. To 
be sure, the elder sister was only five 
years older than Lucy, who owned to 
fifty-two, and who, folks said, had 
always been “ kinder pindlin’,” and in 
truth was now much worn with hard 
work and recent grief. But we know that 
there are always people who contrive to 
be waited upon, and others to whom it 
naturally falls to do the waiting. 

Housewifely traditions were closely 
adhered to in Laurel, where but few even 
of the “ first families ” kept a maid, and 
it was now Stella’s duty, together with 
dishwashing and dusting and such of the 
lighter household tasks as Lucy would 
allow her to undertake, to carry up Miss 
Sophia’s tray. Even that lady had 
grudgingly conceded that “ the child 
wasn’t as clumsy and heavy-footed as 
you might expect,” though why you 


38 


YELLOW STAR 


shouldn’t expect anything of the sort it 
would have taken a better ethnologist 
than Miss Sophia to explain. 

The little ceremony ended, and the 
hard old eyes met with a low-voiced 
“ Good morning,” and a rather fright- 
ened smile, the two ate their own sub- 
stantial breakfast with a hearty appetite, 
and directly afterward “ flew ’round ” to 
get dishes and other “ chores ” out of the 
way before school-time. At a quarter 
to nine, Stella put on her neat jacket and 
knitted red tam-o’-shanter, hugged her 
kind foster-mother, and set out with 
cheerfulness upon her morning pilgrim- 
age, glancing about shyly at the first 
corner for a possible glimpse of demure 
Doris tripping along the sidewalk, or 
scatter-brained Cynthia flying breath- 
lessly down the hill. 

Laurel, like many another village of its 
ilk, was an odd mixture of modern demo- 


A LESSON IN HISTORY 39 

cratic conditions with the elder social 
inheritance. In the village school, the 
children of European peasants, the earlier 
and quick-witted Irish, the later Poles, 
with their broad, heavy faces, two or 
three brilliant, undersized young Jews, 
and the dark-brown scions of several 
long-established negro families, sat side 
by side with the severely self-respecting 
descendants of the earliest Puritan stock. 
The six and seven-year-olds knew no 
difference, and flocked indiscriminately 
together at recess, but it must be ad- 
mitted that the caste idea grew with 
their growth, and that in grammar- 
school and academy circles the lines 
were drawn more definitely than in many 
larger places, to the end of needless 
resentments and heartaches. 

Yellow Star added one more ingredient 
to the racial melting-pot. But whether 
because of a certain aboriginal dignity, 


40 


YELLOW STAR 


or the name and protection of a family as 
much respected as any in Laurel, at any 
rate nearly everybody found it possible 
to accept her with excellent grace, and 
it might have been something personal 
to herself that bid fair to complete her 
conquest of the village. Two of the very 
“ nicest ” girls in Laurel, Cynthia, whose 
father was supposed to be the “ best- 
fixed ” merchant in town, and Doris, the 
busy Doctor’s only child, were already her 
devoted friends. 

Notwithstanding the fact that she had 
promptly taken her place among the 
best scholars in the room, the girl from 
Dakota had not yet lost her sense of 
audacity in rising to recite before so im- 
posing a company. 

“ Why, Stella! you don’t have to dig 
at your books the way you do; it’s 
absurd! Look at me; I haven’t opened 
a single one since Friday afternoon, and 


A LESSON IN HISTORY 41 

I get along,” argued happy-go-lucky 
Sin. 

“ But you belong here, and you have 
been to school always. It is different 
with me. This is my one chance of really 
belonging .” And, contrary to all advice 
and precedent, Stella persisted in re- 
garding school as a privilege to be lived 
up to, and failure in recitation as deep 
disgrace. 

The first thing after recess was Ameri- 
can History review. 

“ How did the early settlers treat the 
Indians? Mary Maloney,” began Miss 
Morrison. 

“ They treated them fine,” declared the 
auburn-haired Mary, with a sly glance 
over her shoulder at the unreasonably 
popular new arrival. 

“ What did the Indians do? Rosey 
Bernstein.” 

“ The cruel and treacherous savages 


42 


YELLOW STAR 


turned upon the defenseless settlers with 
fire an’ ax,” Rosey glibly recited. “ They 
now began a series of frightful massacres.” 

“ They stove the babies’ heads in, 
right in front of their mothers’ faces, and 
then made the mothers walk hundreds of 
miles barefoot in the deep snow,” eagerly 
amended woolly-headed Pete Holley, and 
all the boys wagged their heads and 
grinned with satisfaction. 

“ After they had scalped all the fathers 
by the light o’ their burnin’ buildings,” 
finished Rosey complacently. 

Several hands went up, but Yellow 
Star in her excitement quite forgot to 
wait for the teacher’s permission. 

“ Who says that the settlers were kind 
to the Indians? ” rang out in challenging 
tones. 

More hands madly clawed the air, and 
Miss Morrison rather unwillingly nodded 
to Rosey, who read from her open book: 


A LESSON IN HISTORY 


43 


“ ‘ They treated the Indians for the 
most part with justice and kindness, not- 
withstanding which the cruel — ’ ” 

“ That will do for the present, Rosey,” 
interrupted her teacher, and was hastily 
casting about in her own mind for a basis 
of compromise between warring fac- 
tions when a certain black-eyed little 
heroine rose precipitately to her feet, 
and delivered her soul without fear or 
favor. 

“ Was it treating them with justice and 
kindness to take their lands away from 
them, and give them only a few beads 
and knives for thousands of acres? Was 
it fair to give them whiskey to drink, and 
knives to kill people with, and then when 
they were drunk and angry and killed 
some bad white men, to punish the whole 
tribe by burning their villages and wives 
and children? ” demanded her people’s 
advocate. 


44 


YELLOW STAR 


“ Did the ‘ cruel, treacherous savages ' 
take away all the white people's guns and 
then shoot them down, women with little 
babies and boys and girls smaller than 
us? Did they chase them all over the 
prairie and kill them while they begged 
for mercy, and then call it a battle? 
That's what your soldiers did to us, and 
I was in it! Maybe, if we wrote the 
history books, there wouldn't be so much 
in them about the ‘ treacherous Indians! ' " 

Breathless and darkly flushed, the girl 
from Dakota sank into her seat, and there 
was an awful hush. 

Cynthia was staring at her friend with 
open-mouthed admiration, and tender- 
hearted Doris had her face hidden on her 
desk, while most of the children, horror- 
struck, yet thoroughly enjoying the situa- 
tion, looked hopefully to “ Teacher " 
for summary vengeance on the daring 
rebel against constituted authority. 


A LESSON IN HISTORY 45 

That personage, however, gazed 
straight before her with expressionless 
face, until the silence had grown positively 
fearsome in its explosive quality. Then 
she simply remarked : 

“ Close your books, children! Our 
lesson in history is over for to-day.” 

“ Apple - Tree House, Monday. 

“ Dear Mother-of-Mine, I love Miss 
Morrison she never said a word though 
I was bad to-day and talked right out 
in school. The book was wrong and I 
was right but that didn’t make it proper 
for me to talk did it? But Miss Morrison 
is a Angel and Doris Brown cried because 
she was sorry for the poor Indians. I 
love her too. How many kind people 
there are in the world! I am so happy 
I almost feel as if I could love Miss 
Sophia but not quite. Your Little Girl.” 


CHAPTER IV 


THE - ONE - WHO - WAS - LEFT - ALIVE 

T HE traditional Thanksgiving din- 
ner was a ceremony never omitted 
at the Spellman homestead, even 
though there had been years when Miss 
Sophia had eaten it quite alone, with a 
determination rather grim than grateful. 
This year, there were the two elderly 
sisters, alone in their generation, yet with 
little in common save their family history 
and childhood memories, and the little 
maid from sun-steeped plains of far-off 
Dakota who sat sedately between them, 
plying her knife and fork with a decorum 
that even Miss Sophia could not gainsay. 
Now and again her black eyes darted 
keenly from one subdued face to the 
other, as if in search of something; a 


THE -ONE -WHO -WAS -LEFT -ALIVE 47 

“ trick,” Miss Sophia said, that made her 
“ as nervous as a witch! ” 

The long, heavy, and, to tell the truth, 
rather silent and oppressive meal had 
come to an end at last, with pumpkin 
pie and Indian pudding made punctili- 
ously after the old family recipes, and a 
mold of “ quaking jelly,” that had been 
a favorite of Lucy’s from childhood. 
After the black coffee was brought in, 
Stella slid her nuts and raisins into her 
pocket, and rose at a nod from her foster- 
mother. 

“ Mrs. Maloney will wash the dishes 
to-day, dear,” she said. “ You may go’out 
now, or do anything you like for the rest 
of the day. And I think I hear Cynthia’s 
whistle,” she added, indulgently. 

Miss Sophia sighed aggressively. That 
clear, boyish whistle was a fresh offense 
in her ears. 

“ Go out by the side door, Stella; and, 


48 


YELLOW STAR 


whatever you do, don’t let in that dog 
with his great, muddy feet! ” she com- 
manded; sure that, if Cynthia were 
coming, Scotty could not be far off. 

“ Come on down to Doris’ house,” 
burst out Sin, before the door was fairly 
open. “ It’s always lots of fun down 
there; her mother lets us crack nuts and 
pop corn and everything. Mother has a 
headache again and I mustn’t make any 
noise around home, and of course it’s 
solemn as a church here — ’t always is. 
Can’t you come, Jibby? ” she begged, 
anxiously. 

(The new name was short for ‘ ‘ 0 j ibway , ’ ’ 
invented to tease the little Sioux girl, but 
Yellow Star accepted it, as she did most 
things, with quite stoical composure.) 

“ Yes, I can, Sin; I can do anything I 
want all the rest of to-day,” she answered, 
gravely. “ But oh! do let’s go to the 
woods! ” 


THE -ONE -WHO -WAS -LEFT -ALIVE 49 

“ All right; put on your things quick, 
and come along! (Down, Scotty! down, 
sir!) We must stop for Doris, though; 
and I think Miss Morrison’s there to 
dinner to-day.” 

Stella’s night-black eyes glowed at 
this, for she silently worshiped her sym- 
pathetic teacher. 

Arrived at the Doctor’s, they found a 
large and merry party gathered around 
the air-tight stove in the shabby parlor, 
listening with enthusiasm to the warbling 
of operatic stars on the new phonograph, 
followed by a “ piece ” on the piano by 
demure Doris. There were^Grandpa and 
Grandma Brown, a brisk and well-pre- 
served old couple, with cheeks like rosy 
winter apples; Uncle Si Wolcott, Mrs. 
Brown’s eccentric bachelor brother, who 
lived all alone in a white farmhouse on 
the “ Bay road,” Doris and her father 
and mother, and, finally, two guests 


50 


YELLOW STAR 


who were not “ kin ” to any one else 
present. 

One was Miss Morrison, whose home 
was in an up-to-date little city in a 
neighboring State, and who must other- 
wise have eaten her Thanksgiving dinner 
rather forlornly in a boarding-house; the 
other, a lanky boy of sixteen or so, who 
wore glasses and a thoughtful air, had 
created some amusement for the giggling 
girls at the academy by his name, which 
was Honey. When thus appealed to in 
the velvet tones of some “ lady teacher/’ 
the girls seemed to think it funny. His 
“ front name ” was Ethan, and he was 
an orphan with his own way to make, his 
nearest relative a none too loving u aunt 
by marriage/’ which explains his appear- 
ance on the day of family reunions at 
Mother Brown’s hospitable table. 

The present was not, as Grandpa 
Brown had more than once remarked 


THE -ONE -WHO -WAS -LEFT -ALIVE 51 

with apparently a distinct sense of per- 
sonal injury, a “ genoowine old-fashioned 
ThanksgivinV’ Far from affording the 
excellent sleighing which had been ex- 
pected to facilitate family gatherings in 
Grandpa’s day, and the coasting that had 
undoubtedly sharpened the youngsters’ 
appetites for “ turkey an’ fixin’s,” an 
unseasonable Indian summer warmth 
pervaded this particular twenty-seventh 
of November. When the young people 
set out on their walk, Ethan Honey and 
Miss Morrison being included, they found 
the country roads soft underfoot, rusty 
green leaves yet clinging to the wide- 
spreading apple boughs, with here and 
there a frost-bitten apple, and even the 
yellow of ripe corn still nestling in some 
of the brown stooks that dotted the fields 
like tattered and smoke-stained wigwams. 
Red alder berries and gray clematis 
fringes and the “ ghosts of the golden- 


52 


YELLOW STAR 


rod ” adorned the wayside, while the 
purple-brown woodlands melted into a 
nameless haze upon the lonely horizon 
line. 

“ I’m fond of cross-country hikes, aren’t 
you? ” Ethan observed, as he turned to 
offer Stella an informal lift over the low 
stone wall that lay between them and 
a short cut to “ Wolcott’s Woods.” 

“ I do not know that word ‘ hikes,’ ” 
she answered, in her slow, careful Eng- 
lish, “ but if it is anything like to-day, I 
am sure I shall like it very much. I never 
really knew about Thanksgiving before.” 

“ Oh, didn’t you? ” asked the boy, 
trying not to stare at his self-possessed 
little companion, whose cadenced voice 
and quaint ways, as well as her unusual 
appearance, might have given him some 
excuse. “ I suppose of course your people 
don’t keep Thanksgiving,” he added, 
awkwardly. 


THE -ONE -WHO -WAS -LEFT -ALIVE 53 

u Father and Mother Waring always 
had the good dinner and the church ser- 
vice,” Stella answered, “ but somehow I 
never understood about the family part. 
I suppose because I was only a little girl 
then; or else because they don’t have 
families out in Dakota! I mean, there 
are so many lonely ones whose families 
are back east, with the old houses and the 
old names and all the old things,” the 
girl persisted, greatly to Ethan’s secret 
amusement at her unexpected point of 
view. 

“ But, Stella — that is your name, isn’t 
it? ” he began. 

“ It is one of my names,” she replied 
with dignity. But just then Scotty 
dashed between them, nearly upsetting 
both, while Sin followed with scarcely 
less of abandon, shrieking “ A wood- 
chuck! A woodchuck! ” at the top of 
her voice. 


54 


YELLOW STAR 


“ I wouldn't go any nearer if I were 
you, Cynthia," advised Ethan gravely, 
while Doris and her teacher, calling out 
futile appeals to “be careful," lagged 
breathless in the rear. 

“ It's nothing but a horrid old skunk," 
Cynthia presently complained, coming 
back quite crestfallen. “ Will you never 
learn anything, you old dunderhead? " 
This to the sheepish Sir Walter, whom 
she had by his collar and the hair of his 
head. 

“ When you've skinned as many as I 
have, you won’t be liable to make any 
mistake," the boy observed; whereat 
Doris shuddered visibly. 

“You know," she informed the others, 
“ Ethan skins everything he can get hold 
of — and cuts them up, too, as often 
as not — cats and dogs and rabbits 
and frogs — ugh! He calls it ‘ studying 
biology,' — isn't it perfectly dreadful? " 


THE -ONE -WHO -WAS -LEFT -ALIVE 55 

“ Ethan will probably be a great scien- 
tist, some day,” suggested Miss Morrison. 

“ He’s going to be a doctor, he says,” 
Cynthia bluntly objected, causing the boy 
to blush uncomfortably, while Stella 
regarded him with new respect. 

To change the subject, he said some- 
thing about prairie-dogs, and the girl 
from Dakota was called upon for an 
offhand description of these interesting 
animals, which she gave soberly enough, 
though making the others laugh with her 
quaint characterizations and clever mimi- 
cry. 

Having crossed several fields and fol- 
lowed a farm lane to its end, Ethan let 
down a “ pair o’ bars,” and the company 
climbed a rocky pasture knoll, where 
Yellow Star’s quick eye caught something 
gleaming like dull fire among the dead 
brown of the bare bushes. 

“ What is that? It is like a sunset! ” 


56 


YELLOW STAR 


she exclaimed, and Cynthia echoed 
her. 

“ Oh, what is it? Oh, how beautiful! ” 

“ Bitter-sweet, and the finest I ever 
saw! ” declared Miss Morrison, with 
enthusiasm. “ Oh, oh! was there ever 
such a mass of it before? Have you a 
knife about you, Ethan? I simply must 
have some for my schoolroom; it will 
make a dream of a decoration, and last 
all winter.” 

Cynthia and Doris ran about and ex- 
claimed and unwound the most splendid 
branches, but the Indian girl stood quite 
still and let the beauty of it all sink deep 
into her heart. Years later, the sight 
of a red-gold spray, or even the very 
name of “ bitter-sweet,” brought up that 
riot of color on the rocky knoll, and the 
wordless sadness of those veiled and 
lonely hills. 

“ Now, girls, we simply must get on, 


THE -ONE -WHO -WAS -LEFT -ALIVE 57 

or it will be dark before we can walk to 
Wolcott’s Woods and back again,” de- 
clared Ethan resolutely, shutting his 
knife with a snap. The whole party fol- 
lowed his lead past a fringe of hemlock, 
maple, hornbeam and white birch, on to 
a wild and deep glen that suddenly 
opened at their very feet, with a foaming 
brook in its heart. Scrambling down the 
steep sides of the miniature canyon, they 
followed the stream to its outlet in a 
tiny pond, which is flanked on one side 
by the finest grove of pine in Laurel 
township. 

“ This is Uncle Si’s ice-pond,” an- 
nounced Doris, proudly, “ and these are 
Wolcott’s Woods! ” 

It was so mild that Ethan insisted 
upon taking off his coat, cushioning a 
giant log where the girls might sit and 
rest after their three-mile tramp, while 
the sun already glowed red through the 


58 


YELLOW STAR 


autumn haze, near to the western hori- 
zon. 

“ Aren’t you glad we came, Jibby? ” 
urged Sin, ecstatically. 

“ Jibby . . . another of those names 
of yours, I suppose,” teased Ethan, 
gently. 

“ No, not my name at all,” she told 
him, holding her head the least bit higher. 
“ My school name is Stella, because it is 
the Latin for Star. I was called Yellow 
Star before that, because it is the English 
of my own name.” 

“ And that is? ” 

“ I do think you could not pronounce 
it, but I will say it very slowly. Wee- 
chah'-pee-zee'-wee — like that. No, the 
second syllable is rough — in the throat 
— so!” 

“ Aspirate,” suggested Miss Morrison; 
and each in turn tried to pronounce the 
queer name, with varying success. 


THE -ONE -WHO -WAS -LEFT -ALIVE 59 

“ I chose that name for myself when I 
was four years old,” Stella went on, quite 
seriously. “ I was looking up through 
the teepee door at the bright yellow stars 
overhead. I did not like the name the 
old women gave me; it is a sad name; 
Ish-na'-nee-un'-lah — The-One-Who-was- 
left-Alive! ” 

Everybody was listening eagerly, for 
the brave little exile seldom spoke of her- 
self unless in answer to a direct question, 
and a curious sort of dignity that she had 
about her forbade too close questioning. 
Now it seemed that the unspoken com- 
radeship of the hour had unloosed her 
tongue, and something, too, of the soft- 
ness and quiet pathos of the late Novem- 
ber afternoon had crept into her express- 
ive voice. 

She raised her eyes to the four 
sympathetic faces that were gazing 
straight into her own, and the color 


60 


YELLOW STAR 


rose under her clear, dark skin as she 
asked: 

“ Shall I tell you how they came to give 
me that sad name? ” 

“Oh, do! ” “Tell us, tell us! ” chorused 
the girls; but Ethan sat a little apart, 
and seemed absorbed in whittling a stick 
that he had picked up under the great pine. 

“You have all heard of the fight at 
Wounded Knee? ” began Yellow Star. 
“ Perhaps you know how they fought — 
troops in uniform with big guns, against 
women and children and men whose guns 
had been taken from them? ” (They 
nodded gravely.) “ Well, it was three 
days after the fight that a party went out 
from the agency, eighteen miles away, 
to bury the dead Indians. The agency 
doctor went with them, and it was he 
who found wrapped in blankets, in her 
dead mother’s arms, and lying partly 
covered with snow — for there had been 


THE -ONE -WHO -WAS -LEFT -ALIVE 61 

a snow-storm on the day before — a little 
baby, alive and crying, 

“ They threw the mother’s body into 
the great pit with more than a hundred 
others; but a kind woman of the camp 
took the baby home and fed and took care 
of it. That baby was me! 

“ That is why I do not know who my 
father and mother were, or whether I 
have a single relation in this world. 
There is no way to find out, for nearly all 
my father’s band were killed by the 
soldiers on that day, and there were 
many babies who died, and no one knows 
who I am. And that is why the old 
women called me The-One-Who-was-left- 
Alive! ” 

That was all. A very simple little 
story, very quietly told; but somehow 
no one who heard it had much to say. 
With one accord they all got up from the 
mossy log and set out for home. Pres- 


62 


YELLOW STAR 


ently they began to talk again about 
other things, and even to laugh as lightly 
as before. Just as they parted, Ethan 
slipped into Yellow Star’s hand the thing 
he had shaped with his knife from a 
splinter of pine while she told her story. 
It was a little, five-pointed star. 


CHAPTER V 

in wolcott's woods 

F OR the land sakes! " exclaimed 
Grandma Brown, knitting faster 
and faster, as was her wont when 
disturbed in mind. “ Why don't that 
Parker girl's mother let her dresses down, 
I want to know? 'Pears to me her legs 
get longer an' longer every day! I see 
her tearin' down the hill a spell ago, with 
that outlandish dog o' hers in full chase, 
and all I could think of was a hen- 
turkey with its wings spread out, tryin' 
to get away from a fox." 

“ Why, mother! Cynthia is only a 
little girl," observed Doris' mother, in 
quiet amusement. 

“ Same age as our Doris, ain't she? 
When I was young, gals was women at 


64 


YELLOW STAR 


fourteen, an’ expected to quit playin’ 
with the boys, wear their dresses to their 
shoe-tops an’ be pretty-behaved.” 

“ I wish mother’d let me wear my 
dresses to the tops of my shoes,” put in 
Doris, demurely. “ I’m three months 
older than Cynthia, anyway.” She had 
opened the sitting-room door just in time 
to hear the last speech, but was careful 
not to commit herself to the rest of her 
grandma’s program. 

“ You all going out to your uncle’s 
place again to-day, Doris? ” asked her 
mother, indulgently. “ I see Cynthia’s 
here, but where are the others? ” 

“ Oh, Stella had her Saturday work to 
do, and couldn’t get ’round before two 
o’clock, she said. It’s most that, now,” 
and she turned again to the window. No 
one was in sight except Cynthia and 
Scotty, who were joyously running races 
up and down the yard. 


IN WOLCOTT’S WOODS 


65 


Here Mother Brown disappeared into 
the pantry, possibly to put up a bag of 
her fat, brown cookies, and Doris hunted 
in the hall closet for her white sweater, 
while Grandma commented shrewdly: 

“ That gal's more of a woman than any 
the rest of ye, if she is an Injun." 

“ Wolcott's Woods " had become a 
favorite resort since that Thanksgiving 
ramble which had brought the three 
friends closer together, and the fact that 
the woods belonged to Doris' Uncle Si, 
together with the further consideration 
that the “ new teacher " usually went 
with the girls, had satisfied their respec- 
tive mothers of their safety on these 
excursions. There was talk of snow- 
shoes and skis, and later of fishing-rods 
and flower-baskets, but just what went 
on in Wolcott's Woods no one knew 
exactly, for the “ Clover-Leaf " was a 
secret society of three, with Ethan Hone}^ 


66 


YELLOW STAR 


Miss Morrison and Uncle Si as honorary 
members. 

Presently Stella and her teacher ap- 
peared, and the four set out at once — 
or five, counting in the irrepressible Sir 
Walter, whose care-free bark voiced the 
adventurous spirit of the holiday party. 
It was a warm Saturday in April — one 
of the few days when our New England 
spring really opens her heart to the way- 
farer, and from time to time they were 
overtaken by country teams whose occu- 
pants gazed curiously, even pityingly, 
upon them. Once a farmer returning 
homeward with an empty lumber wagon 
offered the whole party “ a lift,” which 
proposal was gracefully evaded by Miss 
Morrison. It always amused her to note 
that the “ natives ” evidently could not 
conceive of any one’s walking for pleasure, 
or indeed walking at all, unless he were 
frankly too poor to ride. 


IN WOLCOTT’S WOODS 


67 


“ Let’s go round to the house, first,” 
whispered Doris, hanging to Miss Morri- 
son’s arm, when they were almost there. 
The child had a coaxing way with her 
that was not easy to resist; and, more- 
over, Uncle Si’s late russet apples were 
not to be despised at this time of the year. 
So they all wandered up to the side door 
of the low, white farmhouse, with the 
square, forbidding front and homely, in- 
viting back premises characteristic of its 
type. 

The door into the summer kitchen 
stood wide open, and an inquisitive hen 
or two had actually crossed the threshold; 
yet repeated knocks brought no answer. 
Cynthia and Scotty had already dashed 
off in the direction of the barn-yard, from 
which there presently came sounds so 
suggestive of rustic revelry that the 
others precipitately followed. 

“ I told him he didn’t dast to ride one 


68 


YELLOW STAR 


o’ the cows,” shrieked Sin, faint with 
laughter, “ and he’s done it! Look, oh, 
look! It’s as good as the circus — 
better! ” 

Even Miss Morrison couldn’t resist 
the spectacle of Ethan Honey’s long legs 
gripping the sides of his reluctant horned 
steed, his face wearing a smile of mingled 
triumph and embarrassment as he was 
borne at a gallop round and round the 
enclosure, with Scotty yapping delight- 
edly at his heels. In another minute or 
so, without slackening his speed, the 
young man had alighted quite informally 
at their feet. He rose and felt mechani- 
cally for his cap, which had disappeared, 
while he gravely remarked: 

“ Your house is quite finished. I think 
I saw a 1 For Rent ’ sign in the window 
to-day! ” 

The great secret was out! The trio 
of friends had early felt the common 


IN WOLCOTT’S WOODS 69 

need of a tangible house o’ dreams, and 
now the primitive shelter they craved 
had taken shape in Uncle Si’s hospitable 
woods, and chiefly under Ethan’s capable 
and willing hands. 

“ Let’s go right over now and have 
our housewarming,” demanded practical 
Doris. “ Where’s Uncle Si? ” 

“ He went to the store right after 
dinner,” Ethan answered, “ and I’ll have 
plenty of time to finish my chores after 
you go. I’ve been helping afternoons 
and Saturdays for quite a while. Would 
any of you care for a drink of fresh butter- 
milk? I churned this morning.” 

Well, there are worse things than the 
soothing acid of that velvet drink to 
wash the dust from one’s throat after a 
three-mile tramp. It wasn’t many min- 
utes before Ethan was leading the way 
to the woods, his pockets sagging with 
apples, while Sin had stuffed her sailor 


70 


YELLOW STAR 


blouse, and Doris’ sweater was quite 
knobby with the same. 

There were more shrieks of rapture, 
naturally, when the girls spied their 
ingenious shack of fresh-cut evergreen 
boughs, which had been thrust into the 
ground in a circle and cleverly interlaced 
so as to make the hut all but water-tight. 
There was an opening left for a door — 
rather small, it is true, but still satis- 
factory — with another, smaller and 
higher up, for a window; and so neat 
and careful had been the young 
builder’s craftsmanship that the ferns on 
the threshold were scarcely more dis- 
turbed than they might have been by 
the nest-building of a bird. 

The party stooped one by one to the 
oval door, and exclaimed over the fasci- 
nations of the shadowy interior, which 
reminded Yellow Star vividly of the 
conical wigwams of her people. The little 


IN WOLCOTT’S WOODS 71 

house was quite bare and empty, and 
redolent of the scent of fern and pine. 

“ We ought to have a couch of fir- 
balsam, suggested Miss Morrison, who 
had spent a summer in the Adirondacks. 

Cynthia proposed an armful of thick 
moss, while ease-loving Doris declared 
that for her part she preferred to bring 
out a hammock. 

“ What makes you so quiet, Jibby? ” 
demanded Sin, as they stepped forth into 
the open, under the skyey roof. 

“ I feel in my heart what I have no 
words to say,” murmured the Indian girl. 

“ Our neighbors would be quite as well 
pleased, perhaps, if we were all as quiet 
as Stella,” suggested Ethan, quickly. 

“ What neighbors do you mean? Uncle 
Si doesn’t care how much noise we make,” 
remarked literal Doris. 

“No; but my oven-bird does,” and 
the boy pointed out a shy, golden- 


72 


YELLOW STAR 


crowned bird that was apparently recon- 
noitering the gay party with some anxiety, 
from behind a sheltering clump of laurel. 

“ Is its nest near by? ” “ Oh, show us, 
do! ” came from one and another. 

The nest was a curious one, oven- 
shaped, as the bird’s name would sug- 
gest, with an opening at the side through 
which the first of four speckled eggs 
could be dimly seen. But Ethan would 
not allow them to come too near, or linger 
too long. The little mother was already 
uttering cries of distress, and feigning 
lameness to draw them away from her 
treasure. 

“ How is your crow doing? ” queried 
Miss Morrison, as they all sat down on 
the threshold of their “ House in the 
Woods ” to christen it with the first 
social meal. It had been settled that 
there was to be a stone hearth laid for 
coffee-boiling before the next Saturday. 


IN WOLCOTT’S WOODS 73 

“ Fine,” Ethan responded, throwing an 
apple high in the air, and catching it 
skilfully as it fell. “ He can walk ’most 
as well as ever, and eats out of my hand. 
I’m thinking of slitting his tongue and 
teaching him to talk,” he added. 

“ Ethan found a young crow with his 
leg broken, by stone-throwing boys, prob- 
ably, and set it quite successfully,” the 
teacher explained to Stella, who glowed 
visibly, but said nothing. 

“ Well, Doctor, I promise to send for 
you next time I fall out of the cherry- 
tree,” crowed Sin, whose climbing days 
were by no means over, in spite of Grand- 
ma Brown. 

“ Uncle Si is getting ready to go to 
bed by this time, and we ought to be 
going home to supper,” announced Doris, 
soberly, as the April sun dropped into a 
bank of haze in the quiet west. 

“ ‘ Silas Wolcott is dreadful sot/ as 


74 


YELLOW STAR 


Grandma Brown says,” chimed in Ethan. 
“ Many’s the time he’s been offered a 
good price, in hard cash, for this bit of 
pine, but his answer is always the same. 
‘ It’s been in the family for quite some 
time: I guess I won’t sell just yet.’ 

“ You know, don’t you, that he’s never 
missed being in his bed by seven o’clock 
in the evening, winter or summer, for 
forty years? That’s just one of his little 
ways. He’s got lots of them; one’s 
drinking buttermilk three times a day, 
and another is never setting foot inside a 
church. I forget how that started, but 
they say he stood just outside an open 
window at Doris’ mother’s wedding! 
But for all that he’s a good-hearted old 
chap as ever lived, and I wish he was my 
uncle,” the boy ended, honestly enough. 

And the stranger, who was already 
forgetting her strangeness, secretly echoed 
the wish. 


IN WOLCOTT’S WOODS 


75 


“ Oh, these dear, real people! ” she said 
to herself, as they all turned homeward 
together, leaving the darling House in the 
Woods to its invisible neighbors and com- 
panions of the night. “ They are all so 
— so folksy , as Grandma Brown says. 
It really does begin to seem as if I 
belonged! ” 


CHAPTER VI 


A WILD WEST PERFORMANCE 

“ H, Doris, darling! how can I bear 

1 1 it? The very meanest, disap- 

pointingest thing that ever hap- 
pened in this world! Oh, oh! ” and poor 
Sin threw herself face downward on the 
grass in Doctor Brown’s back yard and 
sobbed tumultuously. All of her friend’s 
blandishments were of no effect, and she 
remained dead to the world until Scotty’s 
cold nose poked inquisitively into her 
ear aroused her at last. Springing to 
her feet, she rebuked him with energy, 
and only then consented to retail her 
woes. 

“ Buffalo Bill’s coming to Westwood 
next week, and will you believe it, mother 
won’t take me! Says it’s too hot, and 


A WILD WEST PERFORMANCE 77 

circuses and such things always give her 
a headache. And you know it’s been the 
dream of my life to see Buffalo Bill! 
There now, Doris Brown, see if you 
wouldn’t cry! ” 

“ Um, um,” was all Doris said, for she 
was a maid of action rather than of many 
words. The case, as it seemed to her, 
was by no means hopeless, but she re- 
served her judgment. 

Having had her cry out and relieved 
her feelings, Cynthia was soon engaged 
in a boisterous game with Sir Walter 
and an old tennis-ball that he had rooted 
out of some hiding-place or other, while 
canny Doris slipped into the house and 
shortly returned with a plate full of 
Mother Brown’s famous raisin cookies, 
and a piece of news that quite electrified 
her impulsive friend. 

“ Mother says, if your mother’ll let 
you go with us, she’ll take a party to 


78 


YELLOW STAR 


Westwood to the matinee — you an’ me 
an’ Stella an’ Ethan an’ Miss Morrison 
too, if she wants to go,” she calmly 
stated. 

And so it fell out that on the appointed 
Saturday afternoon in July, a radiantly 
happy party of six occupied seats in the 
big tent; the three girls looking their 
prettiest in simple white frocks, Ethan 
solemn as an owl in glasses and a natty 
linen suit, and good Mrs. Brown swelter- 
ing in the inevitable black dress of village 
propriety, but all alike absorbed in the 
stirring spectacle. 

The Rough Riders of all nations and 
costumes; the wonderful rifle-shooting of 
the short-skirted, sombreroed cow-girl, 
the hair-raising hold-up of the ancient 
stage-coach — each and all yielded a 
separate thrill; but of course the best of 
all were the Indians — real, painted, 
plumed, ferocious warriors and daring 


A WILD WEST PERFORMANCE 79 

horsemen of the plains! Everybody drew 
a long breath when they galloped into the 
arena. 

“ Doesn’t it make you think of home? ” 
whispered Cynthia to Stella, with char- 
acteristic frankness speaking out what the 
others had only thought. 

“ Well, you see,” objected Yellow Star, 
“ our men all dress like farmers now, and 
’most all wear their hair short. I never 
saw anything like this before — except 
once on a Fourth of July, when some 
white people paid our Indians to dress up 
and give a war-dance.” 

“ But — but they used to dress this 
way? ” faltered Sin, rather taken aback, 
while the rest pricked up their ears. 

“ Well, not when they went to war, 
anyway. They wouldn’t want to be 
bothered with all those fixings if they 
really had to ride far, or fight, or any- 
thing like that. I think, myself, they only 


80 


YELLOW STAR 


dressed up at councils and dances, and 
maybe not quite so much, even then/’ 
(with just a flicker of a smile.) “ I know 
one thing: lots of those beaded things 
are not Sioux.” 

“ Not Sioux, my dear! Why, what do 
you mean? ” wondered Mrs. Brown. 

“ You see, Mrs. Brown,” explained 
Stella, “ most of these very men are Sioux 
from our agency. I used to hear Father 
Waring and the agent talking about the 
show people. There are men at home, 
and a few women, that have been all 
over this country and in England and 
France and Germany. One of them 
brought home a German wife who didn’t 
know a word of our language, and he 
couldn’t speak German, either! 

“ Now, here they are, dressed up in all 
the beaded things they could make or beg 
or borrow from some other tribe — not 
Sioux at all! To us, that looks as if you 


A WILD WEST PERFORMANCE 81 

wore a fireman’s boots and trousers and 
a priest’s cassock and a soldier’s hat,” she 
suggested, with another little quirk at 
the corners of the serious mouth, but 
subsided when she observed that several 
people beside their own party were lis- 
tening with evident interest. 

After the performance, four or five of 
the Indians passed out among the audi- 
ence, and as they approached the Laurel 
party, Yellow Star gazed earnestly into 
their painted faces. She recognized 
several, but hesitated to speak to these 
men, whom, as a modest young girl of her 
people, she would not have thought of 
addressing at home, much as she longed 
to hear again the dear accents of her 
mother tongue. 

At last, however, there came a woman 
with a child on her back, in its gorgeously 
beaded cradle, attracting the lion’s share 
of interest and attention. Many gave 


82 YELLOW STAR 

the mother a bit of silver in return for the 
privilege of a peep at its tiny face, or for 
one of the highly colored photographs she 
offered. When she actually held one out 
to Yellow Star among the rest, the girl 
couldn’t help murmuring, in the soft 
syllables of their native Dakota: 

“ Oh, I am so glad to see you! Don’t 
you know me? I am from home, too; I 
am The-One-who-was-left Alive! ” 

The woman stared, then seized Stella’s 
hands eagerly and burst into a flood of 
low-voiced dialect. The two uncon- 
sciously made a picture which was 
thoroughly appreciated by several of the 
bystanders. The tall, slim girl in her 
virginal white frock and modest hat, 
with the big, black bow tying up her 
heavy braids of hair, stood glowing all 
over her expressive face and quite for- 
getting her shyness, while the sad and 
rather stolid countenance of the gaudily 


A WILD WEST PERFORMANCE 83 

attired stranger softened and brightened 
wonderfully at the sight of a friend. 

“ Oh, the dear baby! ” cooed Yellow 
Star, presently, lifting a corner of the 
shawl and looking closely at the little 
olive face. “ But he doesn’t look well! ” 
she exclaimed, anxiously. 

“ He is sick for two days now, and I 
know not what to do, for we must travel 
all time and it is so bad for him,” grieved 
the mother, looking at her with the plead- 
ing black eyes of a hurt animal. “ My 
husband, Young Eagle, he say it is noth- 
ing; but me, I not like to dress him up 
and take around for the white people to 
stare at when he is sick.” 

“ Take him back to your tent, now, or 
wherever you stay, and bring Young 
Eagle to me. I will talk to him,” flashed 
Yellow Star, and she turned to her party 
with an impulsive: 

“ I must go with her for a little while, 


84 


YELLOW STAR 


please: she is my friend; she is in trouble 
and among strangers.” 

“ I'll go with you, dear,” put in Miss 
Morrison, quickly. “We will meet you 
at the station, Mrs. Brown; or no — I 
must take an earlier train; but there is 
time to go with Stella and the baby 
first — ” and before any one could 
speak they were all three lost in the 
crowd, followed by admiring and en- 
vious glances from Cynthia and Doris, 
who fancied that a glimpse behind the 
scenes must hold more of wonder and 
romance than all the rest. 

Neither Stella nor her teacher was at 
the station when the others arrived, and 
after a thorough search took the 5.40 
train, remembering that Miss Morrison 
had said something about an engage- 
ment, and having to leave early, and in 
any case she would surely have kept 
Stella with her. 


A WILD WEST PERFORMANCE 85 

Great was the consternation, therefore, 
when they reached Laurel and found that 
Mrs. Waring had seen or heard nothing 
of her “ little girl,” while a telephone 
message to Miss Morrison disclosed the 
fact that she had been obliged to hurry 
away and leave Stella with her new-found 
friends, who were to see that she met her 
party at the station in time for the 5.40. 

The long, hot, dusty day was sinking 
into twilight, and the precious waif last 
seen with a travelling show, in a strange 
city twenty miles from home! Miss 
Morrison was conscience-smitten, Lucy 
Waring in tears, in which Cynthia and 
Doris were quite ready to join, and poor 
Mrs. Brown all but overcome by this 
unexpected ending to their exciting day. 

There was no train for Westwood that 
night. Of course, there were always the 
telegraph and telephone, but no one knew 
just how to reach any responsible person, 


86 YELLOW STAR 

or even whether the “ Wild West ” 
might not be already on its way to Hart- 
ford or elsewhere. That, Miss Sophia 
said, was in all probability the case. 

“ You may be sure,” she announced, 
with her usual cold precision, “ that the 
wretched child has run away with the 
show. What else could you expect, in- 
deed, after deliberately putting her in the 
way of temptation? You will remember 
that I advised against it from the first. 
The sight of the beads and feathers and 
all the rest of the savage finery was too 
much for her, no doubt, and she will be 
exhibiting herself in them, if possible, 
this very evening. Perhaps this pain- 
ful incident may convince you, my dear 
Lucy, that you can not make a silk purse 
out of a sow’s ear! ” 

After all, the only person to keep all 
his wits about him in this emergency was 
Ethan Honey. That youth stopped to 


A WILD WEST PERFORMANCE 87 

consult nobody, but hastily recollecting 
that an express train for Westwood 
stopped at the next town, three miles off, 
in twenty minutes, he felt in his pockets 
to assure himself that he had just money 
enough for the fare, sprang on his bicycle 
and was off. Breathless and dusty, he 
arrived barely in time to turn the wheel 
over to the agent and board the express, 
which landed him at eight o’clock in the 
evening, anxious, supperless and penni- 
less, among the flaring lights of the big 
town. 


CHAPTER VII 


BEHIND THE SCENES 

T HE corner of the big sleeping-tent 
allotted to Young Eagle and his 
wife and baby was untidy enough, 
with a smell of paints and grease and 
buckskin on the hot, close air. Dex- 
terously Yellow Star rolled the baby out 
of his heavy, beaded cradle and took him 
in her arms. 

He was quiet, even for an Indian baby; 
unnaturally quiet, she thought; and 
there was a pinched look about the tiny, 
expressionless features that went straight 
to her heart. 

The mother had gone at once to look 
for Young Eagle, so that for the minute 
she and Miss Morrison and the baby were 
all alone in this strange, confused place. 



He was quiet, even for an Indian baby; unnaturally quiet, 
she thought. Page 88. 


. 


















































. 





















BEHIND THE SCENES 89 

There was no chance to sit down, even, 
and altogether it was queer and un- 
comfortable. 

“ They must have a doctor at once,” 
pronounced Miss Morrison. Then she 
fidgeted a little, and looked at her watch. 

“ What shall we do, dear? ” she ex- 
claimed. “ I have only just time to 
catch my train if I start at once; and I 
must get back early. Yet I don’t know 
how to leave you here by yourself.” 

“ But I am quite safe,” Stella answered, 
rather absently, her soft eyes on the sick 
baby’s apathetic face. “ Young Eagle 
can take me to the station to meet the 
others.” 

“ Then don’t fail to get there by half- 
past five, and wait for them in the small 
waiting-room. If they get a good doc- 
tor, it will be all right. You’re sure 
you won’t come with me? Then good- 
by, dear.” And Stella was left alone. 


90 


YELLOW STAR 


After long minutes, during which she 
did what little she could for baby’s com- 
fort, the young husband and wife ap- 
peared, he looking rather sulky and 
shamefaced, but nevertheless yielding to 
the peremptory orders, issued in crisp 
Dakota, of the tall, grave-faced girl in 
white, who had thrown off her hat and 
was taking full command of the situation. 
Blue Earth obediently washed some of the 
vermilion from her round cheeks, and 
rolled up a corner of the tent to let in the 
fresh air, crooning over all her troubles 
meanwhile to this strangely sympathetic 
listener, who seemed, with the unex- 
pected demand upon her, to have grown 
years older in the last hour. 

When the doctor came at last, it was 
already too late for the train; but that 
Yellow Star did not realize at once. To 
tell the truth, she had forgotten all about 
Laurel for the time being, and was back 


BEHIND THE SCENES 


91 


among the simple, lovable, swarthy folk 
of her earliest recollections. She listened 
intently to the doctor’s words, which she 
interpreted with care and intelligence. 

“ Now, Doctor,” said she, after ad- 
ministering the first spoonful of medicine 
with her own hand, and giving the docile 
young mother her final instructions, “ if 
you will come with me and Young Eagle, 
please, we must find the man in charge 
and tell him that Blue Earth and the 
baby can not be in the show again until 
he is well.” 

The child had entirely forgotten her- 
self, and her Laurel friends would have 
been astonished to see her thus taking the 
lead and calmly laying down the law to 
strange men, both white and red. 

When she returned from her interview, 
bringing with her the “ boss’s ” promise 
that the woman and child should not 
be required to appear for three days, or 


92 


YELLOW STAR 


longer if necessary, supper was served, 
and she gravely accepted her share of the 
bread and ham and a thick cup filled with 
steaming coffee. They ate and drank, sit- 
ting upon upturned boxes and still talking 
— talking in soft elisions of home and 
the free winds and open skies — home 
and the childhood scenes that seemed 
already so far away. 

It was dark now; eight o’clock, and the 
evening performance had begun. Stella 
learned that the last train for Laurel 
would leave in an hour, but she had no 
escort, not even to the station. Every- 
body was in the show-tent except Blue 
Earth, and she could not leave the baby. 
Besides, she knew even less than did our 
little girl of the mazes of the city streets. 
She must soon set out alone to inquire 
her way; and with the thought, for the 
first time that day, she felt a thrill of 
something like fear. 


BEHIND THE SCENES 93 

Suddenly a familiar face, atop of a tall, 
boyish figure, appeared around a pile of 
boxes. It was Ethan, who fairly beamed 
with relief when he caught sight of her, 
though he only said: 

“ Well, little girl, are you about ready 
to go home? ” 

“ Oh, yes! ” she cried, springing eagerly 
to her feet. “ Oh, have you really been 
waiting for me all this time, Ethan? How 
kind of you! ” and her puzzled eyes 
rested for a moment upon his mussed 
linen suit, and then flitted over the strong 
features, somewhat sharpened by worry 
and fatigue. 

But Ethan did not explain, and Stella 
was slowly, very slowly, emerging from 
her dream. There were few words ex- 
changed between the two, as they made 
their way through back streets to the 
railway station, after an undemonstrative 
farewell between the two girls who, in 


94 


YELLOW STAR 


everything but the common heritage of 
race, were so very far apart. 

Once Ethan asked her if she had 
had any supper; and again, rather 
anxiously, it seemed, whether she had 
money enough for her ticket. 

“ Oh, yes! ” she said at once, handing 
him her little purse with the ticket and 
two or three dollars in silver. 

He left her for a few minutes in the 
ladies’ waiting-room, and after he had 
seen her to the brilliantly lighted train 
and found her a seat, he handed back the 
purse. 

“ I took out fifteen cents, to telephone 
Mrs. Waring,” he carefully explained. 
“ She will meet your train at Laurel. 
Now you are all right, aren’t you? You 
aren’t afraid to travel alone, are you? 
It’s less than an hour, you know.” 

“ But what about you, Ethan? ” she 
wondered. “ You’re coming, too, aren’t 


BEHIND THE SCENES 95 

you? ” and she instinctively made room 
for him beside her, as the train began 
slowly to glide out of the station. 

“ I can’t,” he answered, briefly. 
“ Good night, Stella! ” and next moment 
he had swung himself off the step and 
disappeared in the darkness. 

It was seventeen miles through the 
whispering summer night to the little 
station where he had left his wheel. He 
reached it soon after the midnight freight, 
and found the station agent awake, 
mounted and rode the rest of the way 
home, where the first thing he did was 
to rummage in the pantry for the ma- 
terials of a satisfactory supper, and the 
next, to go to bed and sleep ’round the 
clock. 

“ I couldn’t borrow from a girl, you 
know,” was all Ethan said, when ques- 
tioned about his midnight tramp. “ And 
besides, it was great. Such a lark! ” 


96 


YELLOW STAR 


To himself he said: “ I shall never 
forget the talking leaves, the wood 
smells, the company of the stars.” 

Stella came fully to herself on the short 
ride home, and was all tender repentance 
and self-blame when she fell into the arms 
of her kind foster-mother, on the de- 
serted platform, with the one arc-light 
shivering overhead. 

“ Oh, mother! I never thought you 
might be anxious. I never thought of 
people looking for me. I’m afraid I 
never thought of anything but the poor 
little sick baby — and Blue Earth in 
such trouble, among strange white pepple. 
I wanted to help.” 

“ Yes, darling; mother understands. 
And you are safe home, now, thanks to 
that dear, bright boy. We won’t say any 
more about it,” answered gentle Lucy 
Waring. 


BEHIND THE SCENES 


97 


But, although nothing more was said 
— for Lucy had contrived somehow to 
silence even Miss Sophia — Stella seemed 
to everybody a good deal older, after 
her Wild West adventure. She was now 
nearly fifteen, and the eager, child-like 
wish to belong was already partly obscured 
by the more womanly and deeper desire 
to help. She wrote to Blue Earth, in 
their own tongue, and received in the 
course of a week or two a soiled scrawl in 
reply, saying only that the baby was well 
now. There seemed nothing more to be 
done for them, or for any of her own 
people — not just now, at any rate — and 
the girl set herself in good earnest to be 
a real help to the kind people of her 
adoption. 

So she rose an hour earlier every morn- 
ing, and quietly took upon herself more 
of the burden of household duties, turning 
them off so dexterously that Lucy War- 


98 


YELLOW STAR 


ing, who had failed perceptibly in the 
past year, accepted the relief almost un- 
consciously, and even Miss Sophia had 
no open fault to find. 

“ If I could only please Miss Sophia,” 
grieved Yellow Star. “ But I know I 
never can, for I can’t change myself into 
something else. She dislikes me because 
I am Indian,” was the unspoken thought, 
and it cut deep. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE RIGHT STUFF 

W HEN September came round, 
Stella entered the old academy 
with Doris and Cynthia and 
the rest, and found a new and absorbing 
world opening before her. Laurel acad- 
emy was an endowed school, and a really 
good one, with better-paid teachers 
and more up-to-date equipment than the 
little town could have provided out of its 
own slender resources. 

Ethan had been duly graduated and 
was going away to college, where for 
two or three momentous years the girls 
were seldom to see him, since he was 
“ working his way through,” and found 
it necessary to devote the long vacations 
to more paying, though not half so 


100 


YELLOW STAR 


pleasant things as doing “ chores ” for 
kind old Uncle Si. 

The girls had now fairly entered upon 
a period of life in which boys cease to be 
“ horrid things,” and girls are no longer 
considered “ too silly for anything,” and 
it soon became evident that, of the 
three friends, Doris was by far the most 
mature socially. She was undoubtedly 
a pretty girl, with big blue eyes, fasci- 
nating hair of an amber tint, and a skin 
like a rose-leaf — a belle and a flirt in 
her demure, village fashion long before 
her sixteenth birthday. 

Cynthia, to her languid mother’s dis- 
content, but her father’s secret satis- 
faction, was at the same age a long- 
limbed, lanky, boyish-looking girl, with 
decidedly boyish manners, and only the 
frankest and least flattering interest in 
the ruder sex. As for Stella, the country 
youths admired her from a distance, 


THE RIGHT STUFF 101 

while she, for her part, had no time for 
them. 

“ I do despise long skirts; they get in 
your way so! ” Sin complained, as the 
three were scaling a friendly stone wall 
on a pleasant Saturday in the following 
spring, taking their favorite “ short cut ” 
to Wolcott’s Woods. 

The others laughed. “ You do act just 
like a boy in petticoats,” reproved Doris. 
“ You don’t seem to know how to manage 
them a bit. There — you’re caught 
again! ” as Cynthia sprang recklessly 
from the top of the wall, to the accom- 
paniment of a sharp sound of rending 
cloth. 

“ I don’t care! ” Sin was bent on 
braving the matter out, and, to her 
friends’ horror, she calmly tore off a long 
strip of blue serge and threw it away. 
“ Nonsense; I never mend. Daddy’ll 
give me a new skirt out of the store any 


102 


YELLOW STAR 


time I ask him. I hate clothes, and I 
hate sewing. I’m sure I don’t know why 
I was born a girl.” 

“ What shall you wear to the dance? ” 
asked Doris of Stella, as they strolled 
lovingly side by side. Cynthia, her 
friends thought, was in a mood that 
would best be ignored. 

“ My dotted swiss, I suppose; do you 
think it will do? ” 

“ Mother is making me a new silk 
muslin — pale blue; and I’ve got a sash 
to match and new slippers. It’s two 
inches longer than my last.” Doris’ 
voice was full of innocent satisfaction. 
“^You look perfectly stunning in white, 
Stella,” she added, generously. “ And 
you’re the best dancer of anybody in 
our set. Isn’t she, Sin? ” 

Mrs. Waring had insisted upon giving 
Stella two terms of dancing lessons, with 
the others, much to her sister’s disgust; 


THE RIGHT STUFF 


103 


and here the native grace of the Indian 
girl stood her in good stead. It must 
be admitted that, if she did not par- 
ticularly care for boys, she did love 
dancing; it was almost like flying, she 
thought. 

“ Um, h’m,” assented Sin, who was 
born without a sense of rhythm, and never 
seemed to know what to do with her arms 
and legs. “ I don’t see what either of 
you want to dance for, though; I hate 
it, myself. Catch me going to their old 
party! Give me a warm corner and an 
interesting story, when it’s too dark to go 
out. Scotty! Come here at once — here, 
sir! ” 

But, as usual, the obstreperous Sir 
Walter declined to budge, and his mistress 
found it necessary to follow up and 
forcibly detach him from a promising 
burrow. 

“ What a tom-boy she is! I don’t 


104 


YELLOW STAR 


believe Sin will ever grow up,” Doris 
lamented. u Are you looking for any- 
thing in particular to-day, Jibby, dear? ” 

“ Trailing arbutus for Miss Sophia. I 
believe she'd rather have it than anything; 
and you know that little warm nook in 
the pines, south of our House in the 
Woods? It ought to be out, just there,” 
answered Yellow Star, eagerly, looking as 
if she would coax the pale buds open with 
the warm shining of her dusky face. 

“ Too early; and besides, I don't see 
why you're always wanting to do some- 
thing special for that cross old maid, 
Jibby,” objected Sin, who had come back 
within ear-shot. “ She never does any- 
thing for you , does she? I'm going to get 
some flowers for Doris' mother, if there 
are any. Her cookies are awfully good.” 

“ I shall take mine to Miss Morrison,” 
observed Doris. “ But I've got to go 
round by Uncle Si's first; mother said he 


THE RIGHT STUFF 


105 


wasn't feeling very well the last she heard, 
and she told me to be sure and stop. Will 
you come too, girls, or would you rather 
go on? " 

“ I will come," agreed Stella, at once. 

“ I won't, then," remarked Sin, who 
was unusually contrary to-day, the others 
thought. “ I can't bear sick people, and 
he may be awfully sick for all we know! 
And then, you never can tell what Uncle 
Si is going to say next." 

It was quite true. You never could 
tell; and his first words to-day made 
both girls jump, coming unexpectedly, 
as they did, in Uncle's small, squeaky 
voice, through the open window of the 
“ kitchen chamber," where he always 
slept. 

“ Look out for the bull, gals! Dunno 
'zactly where he is, but he's certain on the 
rampage, 'n' I can't do a thing. Been 
under the weather these two days. No, 


106 


YELLOW STAR 


no breakfast, nor supper neither; didn't 
want it bad enough to git up V git it. 
What's that, Doris? Wa'al, the door 
ain't locked, if ye will come in." 

In five minutes Stella had a brisk fire 
going in the kitchen stove, and in ten 
more the tea-kettle was singing cheerily, 
toast made, tea put to draw, and two 
fresh eggs from the hay-mow “ coddled " 
to perfection. She had been well trained 
in waiting upon a fussy would-be in- 
valid. 

Doris had found her uncle lying, fully 
dressed, upon the bed, covered with a 
gay patchwork quilt, and looking wor- 
ried and feverish. She succeeded in ar- 
ranging his pillows and putting the room 
to rights before the arrival of the tray; 
and while Stella deftly helped the old 
man to take some nourishment, Doris 
prudently closed both doors and tele- 
phoned to her mother. 


THE RIGHT STUFF 


107 


“ There! she’ll see that he’s taken care 
of properly, if he is ‘ queer as Dick’s hat- 
band,’ as Grandma says,” observed his 
niece. “ She’s always saying that ‘ for 
a man to live alone as he does and cook 
his own vittles is flyin’ in the face of 
Providence,’ and she ‘ hasn’t no manner 
of doubt that Silas’ll be found dead in 
his bed, some fine morning.’ Well, I 
hope not, I’m sure! Now we must go 
right away and find Cynthia; no telling 
what mischief she’s up to, by this time.” 

“ Or the bull, either,” thought Yellow 
Star; but she said nothing, for she knew 
her friend’s weakness. In the excitement 
of taking care of Uncle Si, his niece had 
forgotten all about the bull. If not, 
Stella knew well that poor Cynthia 
would be left to her fate, so far as timid 
Doris was concerned. Why, even the 
most harmless cow that ever lowed would 
send her flying from the huckleberry 


108 


YELLOW STAR 


pasture, and folks said the Wolcott bull 
was dangerous. 

So only one of the girls kept a sharp 
lookout as they passed the open barn- 
yard gate and crossed the pasture toward 
Wolcott’s Woods. On its distant verge, 
a fleck of scarlet showed plainly — Cyn- 
thia’s old red cape. And — yes! A 
lumbering, dark shape had already started 
leisurely in pursuit of the scarlet fleck. 

Stella saw the bull first, and walked on 
faster. Then Doris saw, grew white as 
a sheet and instantly turned to run, 
oblivious of the fact that Taurus had his 
back toward them, and his eye too 
evidently upon Cynthia. 

“ Help! help!” she screamed, as she 
fled; but there was neither house nor 
man within half a mile. 

Stella resolutely advanced, keeping 
close to the wire fence that separated the 
big pasture from their much-loved woods. 


THE RIGHT STUFF 


109 


Cynthia had discovered her danger and 
was running gallantly, but had not 
thought to drop her red cape. And she 
had been caught in the open field, far 
from fence or tree. Sir Walter had left 
her side, and was barking hoarsely and 
making little ineffectual dashes at the 
bull, that, together with her headlong 
flight, merely served to provoke his 
curiosity into wrath. Giving a terrifying 
bellow, he set off at full speed. 

Yellow Star had seen much of wild 
Texas cattle at the agency, where they 
are issued to the Indians “ on the hoof,” 
as a monthly ration. Furthermore, Sir 
Walter had long since learned to obey the 
girl from Dakota as he never dreamed of 
obeying his impetuous little mistress. 
Her flute-like whistle was enough to 
bring him galloping to her side. Cynthia, 
too, turned half-way toward her at the 
sound, stumbled and fell at full length. 


110 


YELLOW STAR 


The bull was still plunging heavily 
along, and Stella, who had hoped to draw 
him off in her direction and then slip 
through the wire fence out of reach, 
found scant time for any such maneuver. 
Desperately she sent Sir Walter flying 
back to bark and snap at his heels, while 
she herself stood still and uttered a long 
ringing cry. 

He stumbled, half turned — and hark! 
the strange, challenging cry was repeated 
again and again, until it actually brought 
him to a halt but a few paces from poor 
Sin, who had struggled to her feet and 
was sobbing aloud as she tried to run 
with a twisted ankle. And now the be- 
wildered animal stood pawing the sod 
and bellowing in hoarse response, until 
both girls had reached a place of safety. 

“ Well, that was a close call, and no 
mistake! ” Cynthia had quite recovered 


THE RIGHT STUFF 


111 


her spirits in the course of an hour or so, 
and was obviously enjoying her own im- 
portance as the heroine of so rare an 
adventure, while she nursed her sprained 
ankle on the shabby cushions of Doctor 
Brown’s top-buggy. Poor Doris, still 
pale and tearful, was squeezed in between 
Cynthia and the Doctor, while Mrs. 
Brown remained in temporary charge of 
her protesting brother, and Stella, who 
had insisted upon walking, was already 
far ahead. 

The gruff Doctor assented, with an 
appraising eye, meanwhile, upon the soli- 
tary girlish figure moving so rapidly be- 
fore them, along the hilly country road. 
The Doctor was not a man of unneces- 
sary words; but if he had spoken out 
his thought just then, it would have 
sounded something like this: 

“ There’s the right stuff in that girl — 
no question about it! I wonder — ” 


CHAPTER IX 


GLIMPSES OF OLD AMERICA 

W HEN Uncle Si, getting “ so’s to 
be ’round ” again, heard all 
about Stella and the Wolcott 
bull, the immediate results were two. 

First, the bull was promptly sold — a 
surprising occurrence to those who best 
knew Silas Wolcott and his deep-rooted 
objection to disposing of any “ critter ” 
whatsoever that had been raised on the 
home place. No fowl was too old or too 
tough for home consumption, and indeed 
Uncle had developed no mean skill in 
softening gallinaceous tissues and im- 
parting a delicious flavor by braising for 
twelve hours or’thereabouts, with pepper- 
corns and sweet herbs, in an old-fashioned 
bean-pot. But superfluous calves and 


GLIMPSES OF OLD AMERICA 113 

superannuated horses were said to owe 
their immunity from sale to the fact that 
they had been “ born on the old farm,” 
a fact which to his mind appeared to 
constitute a lifelong claim upon its 
hospitality. 

Consequence number two, our heroine 
was actually adopted, to the extent of 
being formally requested to call the old 
man “ Uncle,” which she shyly but joy- 
fully proceeded to do. It was one more 
milestone on her long and often lonely 
road to “ some really true relations.” 

Now among the strictly home-bred 
stock on the Wolcott acres was a small 
herd of deer, as jealously guarded and 
almost as tame as if they had adorned the 
stately park of some English earl. Stella 
heard with intense, though undemon- 
strative, interest of this unexpected re- 
naissance of wild life among the New 
England hills. 


114 


YELLOW STAR 


“ Why, Mother Waring,” she confided, 
“ you know they’re almost gone from our 
Dakota prairies, where there used to be 
so many. Think how hard it is for the 
women to get any deerskin for moccasins! 
And how can there be deer here where 
white people have lived for hundreds of 
years? ” 

“ There weren’t any when I was a 
little girl,” Mrs. Waring observed. “ I 
believe they have come back because 
for many years now they have been pro- 
tected; that means, you know, that no- 
body is allowed to kill them. Seems to 
me I’ve heard that there are supposed to 
be several thousand in this State; and 
now a law has been passed that for one 
week this fall they may be shot,” she 
added, doubtfully. 

“ Uncle Si won’t have his shot,” in- 
sisted Stella. “ He has printed signs up 
all over his woods, with something about 


GLIMPSES OF OLD AMERICA 115 

‘ the penalty of the law.’ Mother, I do 
so want to see a deer! and he says there 
are three that come to drink at the Cold 
Spring almost every evening. We’ve 
seen their tracks — a buck, a doe, and a 
dear little fawn,” the sweet voice pleaded. 
“ But we always have to come home 
early so’s to be in time for tea.” 

“ So you do, darling,” assented her 
foster-mother, her gentle, puzzled gaze 
upon Stella’s earnest face. She knew by 
instinct that the child had a special favor 
to ask — she who had always found it 
hard to ask favors. 

Out it came at last. “ Cynthia is just 
as wild about the deer as I am; and — 
and — Mother dear — Uncle Si says we 
can come some Saturday and he’ll show 
them to us if we can keep quiet enough; 
and Dr. Brown has promised to drive us 
out there and back — Doris too, though 
Doris is a teeny bit afraid of the old 


116 


YELLOW STAR 


buck’s horns — if you’re willing, and 
don’t mind my being out after dark just 
this once.” She was quite breathless, now. 

“ Why, yes, I think so — if the Doctor 
is kind enough to take charge of you — ” 
Mrs. Waring got no further, for the sen- 
tence was interrupted at this point with 
a strangling hug. 

After Stella had actually seen the deer, 
which happened before many weeks, the 
four friends had an earnest discussion 
upon the subject of the coming week of 
slaughter. 

Ethan had lately become quite an 
adept with bow and arrows, which sug- 
gested to him the bright idea of going into 
the merry greenwood with the romantic 
equipment of a Robin Hood or a Hia- 
watha. He rather looked for the admira- 
tion of the girls, and especially of Yellow 
Star, and had even gone so far as to 
picture himself triumphantly bringing in 


GLIMPSES OF OLD AMERICA 117 

the deer on his shoulders, and gallantly 
throwing it down at Mrs. Waring's 
kitchen door. Rather to the boy's re- 
sentment, however, she proved most 
unsympathetic. 

“ How can you think of such a thing? ” 
she protested, “ and after we have all 
watched the darling things drinking out 
of Uncle's spring! I don't call it hunting 
to go out and kill them when they are so 
tame, almost like pets." 

“ I hope you don't think I propose to 
shoot on posted land," remarked Ethan 
with some dignity. “ I know just where 
I shall go; on the south side of the 
mountain there's a regular deer path; 
and it isn't like gunning, let me tell you, 
with the buckshot scattering every which 
way; and beside, the farmers down that 
way are glad enough to have the deer 
killed — they do no end of damage to the 
young fruit trees." 


118 


YELLOW STAR 


“ I should say so; why, those very 
deer that Uncle Si thinks so much of got 
into the garden one night, and ruined all 
his early peas,” chimed in sensible Doris. 
“If it had been his next-door neighbor’s 
calves, wouldn’t there have been a row, 
or even a lawsuit, may be.” 

“Well, rather,” observed Ethan, glad 
of a champion. “ That’s just why the 
law was passed providing for one week’s 
open season; the deer are getting to be 
regular nuisances all over this part of the 
state. Pretty soon the farmers will have 
to build high fences to keep them off the 
growing crops.” 

“ It’s letting them think no one is 
going to hunt them, till they forget to be 
afraid, and then turning an army of men 
and boys loose on the poor things all 
of a sudden, that I don’t like,” broke 
in Cynthia impulsively. “ It’s all very 
well talking about the law, but what do 


GLIMPSES OF OLD AMERICA 119 


the deer know about your old law? It 
isn't fair, and I hate anything that's not 
fair." 

“ And it has seemed so like home, ever 
since I knew for certain there were wild 
deer in these woods," breathed Stella. 
“ Girls, I keep fancying we’ll come upon 
some wigwams, some time, of those old 
Indians who lived here two hundred years 
ago. I suppose there aren't any bounties 
offered for their scalps nowadays; and 
just suppose they should come back, like 
the deer! " 

The young folks were picnicking, as 
usual, in the edge of that bit of first- 
growth pine that Uncle was so proud of, 
and at Stella's words all glanced furtively 
about, as if half expecting to glimpse a 
ragged birch-bark dwelling, or even one 
of the soft-footed braves revisiting his 
native haunts in these venerable woods. 
After all, it was they who were the in- 


120 


YELLOW STAR 


truders. Ethan looked decidedly shaken, 
but matter - of - fact Doris remarked 
bluntly: 

“ If they did come back, they wouldn’t 
kill the deer for one week, but every day 
in the year. I thought Indians were 
always hunting, when they weren’t on the 
war-path killing people; and you needn’t 
say anything, Stella Waring, so there! ” 

However, when the open season 
actually came round with November, 
Ethan decided that he was “ too busy ” 
to take a day off in the woods, which 
Stella’s fancy had peopled for him with 
stealthy shadows, and friendly wreaths 
of blue smoke from well-hidden wigwams. 
It was Thanksgiving before they all met 
again at Uncle Si’s place, and found him 
“ as mad as a hatter.” 

“ Spent more’n half o’ that week patrol- 
in’ the woods with a shotgun, and givin’ 
fools that couldn’t read plain English a 


GLIMPSES OF OLD AMERICA 121 

piece o’ my mind,” he explained, grimly. 
“ Howsomever, the blamed racket scared 
my deer so’t I’ve never seen ’em since, 
and most likely I sha’n’t agin.” 

“ What a shame! ” cried Sin, and poor 
Stella looked too much distressed to 
speak. She had tried not to think of the 
timid creatures harried and wounded, of 
antlered heads laid low, of the blood-drops 
on the leaves. 

“ Have you ever noticed this big 
rock in the middle of the pasture? — 
noticed it very specially, I mean,” she sug- 
gested, as they made their way around the 
giant boulder, towering high above their 
heads like a rude altar. “ I always think, 
what if it was right here the Indians 
used to make their prayers and offerings! 
Great-grandfather Inyan — that’s what 
we Dakotas call a rock like that. And 
there must have been water-spirits — 
what you call fairies — about uncle’s 


122 


YELLOW STAR 


ever-flowing spring. Oh, Cynthia and 
Doris! I should think you girls would 
care more about the old America. You’re 
proud of being Americans; and there 
may be prettier stories belonging to these 
very hills than those we read in school 
about the Roman nymphs and the old 
Norse thunder-gods.” 

“ But where would we find them? ” 
asked Doris, much impressed. 

“ Try the Historical Society,” Ethan 
suggested. 

“ I’m going straight to the library,” 
proclaimed Cynthia, “ and next time we 
come for a day in the woods, we’ll each 
of us tell an ' Old America ’ story. 
What do you say, girls? ” 

An hour later, they had scattered in 
search of princess-pine and Christmas 
ferns, squaw-berries and moss, and Stella, 
at some little distance from the others, 


GLIMPSES OF OLD AMERICA 123 


was carefully lifting a clump of hepaticas 
for Miss Sophia’s fernery, when she sud- 
denly thought she heard a faint, whimper- 
ing noise. 

The blood fairly crinkled in her veins. 
Dropping basket and trowel, she set her- 
self to follow up the cry which came again 
and yet again, a plaintive, muffled, half- 
human sound that was almost like a 
baby’s smothered wail. At last her quick 
eye detected a misplaced leaf. The faint 
trail led straight to a dense thicket of 
laurel where a small creature lay motion- 
less, so near the color of the dead leaves 
in which it nestled that to most eyes it 
would have been invisible. 

With one quick spring she was upon 
it, and had flung both arms around the 
neck of a half-grown fawn, which had 
been wounded in the side, and was too 
weak to struggle much. Then she raised 
her voice in a loud cry. 


124 


YELLOW STAR 


“ Ethan! Cynthia! Oh, E — E — 
than! ” 

“ It’s Stella’s fawn, now,” piped Uncle 
Si Wolcott. They were all in the big 
farmhouse kitchen; Stella on the floor 
with the fawn’s head on her lap, and a 
saucer of milk beside her; Cynthia 
swinging her long limbs from her favorite 
perch on the edge of the table, and the 
others standing around in admiring atti- 
tudes. “ Doctor Ethan ” had carefully 
washed the wound, and pronounced it not 
serious. 

“ Th’ game warden’s a pretty good 
friend o’ mine,” he went on, with a 
twinkle, “ and I don’t guess there’ll be 
any trouble about her keepin’ it for a 
pet if she wants to.” 

The three girls exploded in a simul- 
taneous “ Oh! ” of delight, but next 
instant a look of almost laughable be- 


GLIMPSES OF OLD AMERICA 125 

wilderment overspread their faces. The 
same thought had occurred to them all 
at the same time. Miss Sophia! 

“ Do you suppose shell let you? ” 
queried Sin in awestruck tones, while the 
others held their breath. No one but 
Cynthia would dare to say things right 
out like that. 

“ You might have a little house for 
him, down by the chicken-coop,” qua- 
vered Doris. 

Stella was thinking hard. No one knew 
how she wanted the waif for her own; 
and she felt sure that dear Mother War- 
ing would not — could not refuse her. 
The question was, did Stella want her 
to pay the price? 

They were all waiting for her to speak, 
and at last her clear voice broke the 
silence. 

“ The fawn is something like me,” it 
began, pitifully. “You see, don't you? 


126 


YELLOW STAR 


It’s wild; it hasn’t any relations. I 
know just how a wild orphan feels, and 
I’m afraid it wouldn’t want to live 
in Miss Sophia’s chicken-coop and have 
her all the time wishing it wasn’t there. 
Uncle Si, if you would only be willing to 
let the fawn stay in the barn-yard with 
the calves, and if I could just call it 
mine, and come and feed it some- 
times ? ” 

There was a soft brightness in the black 
eyes, as if tears were not far off, and 
everybody began talking at once, trying 
to drown the thought of the two “ wild 
orphans” clinging together, and the utter 
hopelessness of an appeal to Miss Sophia. 

“ Think the critter ’d be most as un- 
pop’lar as Ethan’s rattlesnakes, hey? ” 
chuckled Uncle Si. 

“ What? ” screamed Doris and Cynthia, 
together, and the boy blushed to the roots 
of his hair. 


GLIMPSES OF OLD AMERICA 127 

“ Well, you know, that was a long time 
ago,” he muttered, but Uncle mercilessly 
continued : 

“ Said they wa’n’t dangerous at all, 
if ye knew how to handle 'em — pick 
’em up by the scruff o’ the neck, like 
blind kittens; wa’n’t that it, Ethan? 
Studied a heap on the subjick, he had. 
‘ Uncle/ says he, ‘ they don’t need to eat 
a thing fer six months to a year; ’ an’ 
I says, ‘ There orter be a good bit o’ 
profit in boarding ’em,’ says I. But 
Ethan, he says as how he can get five 
dollars apiece from a museum; and he 
has a pair o’ boots made to come 
up to his waist, pretty nigh; an’ he 
tramps over to Rattlesnake Gulch one 
mornin’ afore daylight, so as to ketch 
’em crawlin’ out o’ their holes, most 
likely.” 

Every eye was fixed upon the speaker, 
except that of his victim, who wriggled 


128 


YELLOW STAR 


uneasily and vainly tried to break into 
the conversation. 

“ Ethan allers did go in fer makin’ 
money, ye know,” pursued Uncle, en- 
joying his success. Wouldn’t take along 
any whisky fer bites, though I offered 
him all I had left, sayin’ as how it was a 
wuss pizen than the snake’s an’ not 
accordin’ to modern methods. Wal, 
along about dark Ethan comes back 
pretty well tuckered out, carryin’ a 
gunny-sack over his shoulder on the end of 
a stick. Didn’t need to tell me there 
was a live rattler in that there gunny- 
sack! I could hear his tail a-goin’ 
like an alarm-clock, an’ every now an’ 
then he’d strike out kinder vicious 
an’ set the thing to wavin’ back an’ 
forth.” 

“ How did you ever get him into the 
sack, Ethan? ” begged Cynthia, much ex- 
cited. Doris shuddered, and hid her face 


GLIMPSES OF OLD AMERICA 129 

in her hands, while Stella sat quite silent, 
with the fawn’s head in her arms. 

“ Mischief of it was to git him out 
agin,” remarked Uncle. “ Ef Ethan ever 
got that five dollars, I will say he arned 
it. Just tell ’em what your aunt by mar- 
riage said when she stumbled over that 
gunny-sack in the woodshed an’ found 
out what was in it, Ethan.” But Ethan 
had slipped out to the barn, and was 
fixing up an unused box-stall for Stella’s 
fawn. 

“ Gone, is he? Wal, all I can say is, 
Miss Sophia Russell ain’t a circumstance 
to Mis’ Honey on that occasion. Don’t 
know as I blame her, neither. That 
pet o’ yourn ’ll be safe enough with your 
old uncle, Stella, an’ you’ll be out to tend 
to it every Sat’day, or I’ll know the reason 
why.” 


CHAPTER X 
nobody’s little girl 

a TT doos beat all,” declared Grandma 
Brown, with even more than her 
usual emphasis, “ how blind own 
folks can be! I’ll lay there ain’t a man, 
woman nor child in Laurel township, 
save an’ exceptin’ Sophi’ Spellman, that 
don’t know Lucy’s goin’ straight into a 
decline. Weak lungs is in the fam’ly, to 
begin with; I can rec’lect when those 
gals’ mother an’ aunt both went off with 
the gallopin’ consumption. Like as not, 
Lucy felt her husband’s death a good deal; 
an’ I’ve heerd tell how that Dakoty 
climate keys you right up till ye can’t live 
anywheres else without snappin’ off short. 

“ She’s ben goin’ down stiddy ever 
sence she come back home, that’s flat; 


NOBODY’S LITTLE GIRL 131 

an’ here's that sister of hers tellin' folks 
as how ‘ it's jest a touch o' bronchitis/ an' 
‘ she only wishes she had Lucy's conster- 
tution.' 

“ What's more, she has her breakfust 
in bed reg'lar, so I hear, for all the world 
like them ungodly folks in furrin parts, 
an' reads French novels on the sofy 
while Lucy an' Stella doos up the work. 
I declare for't, Emmeline, if somebody 
else don't do it pretty quick, I'll speak to 
Sophi' myself! " 

Everybody knew that Grandma had 
succeeded in preserving to a good old age 
all the “ spunk " and “ snap " that seems 
to have perished, for the most part, with 
a past generation, and it is quite possible 
that, if opportunity had served, she would 
have faced down and outdone even the 
formidable Miss Sophia. Lucy's decline, 
however, had been so very gradual, and 
her ways so quiet and uncomplaining, 


132 


YELLOW STAR 


that even a sister might almost have 
been forgiven for not realizing how mat- 
ters stood. As for her dear Sioux daugh- 
ter, now a head taller than herself, and 
completing, to the eminent satisfaction 
of her teachers, her second year’s work in 
the academy, to her it had seemed a 
sufficient explanation of everything that 
“ mother was growing old!” For the 
fifties, and even the forties, of ripe middle 
age do seem “ old ” to sixteen. 

After almost three years in Laurel, 
Yellow Star was growing fairly certain 
that she truly “ belonged.” Modest as 
she was, she could not help knowing that 
people liked her — all sorts of people — 
boys and girls and babies, intimates and 
strangers, sharp-tongued Grandma Brown 
and the gruff-spoken Doctor and “ per- 
nickety ” Uncle Si. Even from Mary 
Maloney and Rosey Bernstein the Indian 
girl had wrung some measure of reluctant 


NOBODY'S LITTLE GIRL 133 

admiration; but, in spite of much willing 
service, she remained vividly conscious 
of being still an outsider and an inter- 
loper in the eyes of Miss Sophia. 

Now at last Doctor Brown had been 
sent for to see Lucy Waring. Everybody 
in Laurel, almost, had noticed his ancient 
roan steed and battered top-buggy before 
the Spellman gate. It was impossible 
to deny any longer, in the face of that 
long-postponed confession, what all the 
village tongues had been wagging with 
for months past. Lucy had “ took to her 
bed,” at last, and the end could not be 
very far off. 

It came suddenly, after all; to Yellow 
Star with a suddenness almost as devas- 
tating as that storm of bullets and shell 
out of a clear sky which had left her 
stranded, a nameless brown waif, on the 
frozen December sod, some fifteen years 
before. 


134 


YELLOW STAR 


The spring term had slipped quickly 
away, with Miss Ward installed as nurse 
and Doctor Brown calling every other 
day; with Miss Sophia looking grimmer 
and grayer than ever, and Lucy’s waxen 
face on the pillow relaxing into a loving 
smile as she repeated the daily formula 
which only Stella really believed: 

“ I shall be better to-morrow. Now 
the weather is getting so pleasant, I shall 
soon be out again.” 

Then, one sultry July day, after a long 
“ spell ” of exhausting heat, there had 
come an alarming faintness and a “ hurry 
call ” for the Doctor. Miss Sophia was 
hastily sent for from the kitchen, where 
she had been taking the indignant Mrs. 
Maloney to task for “ nicking ” her old 
blue china . . . and presently, to poor 
Stella sitting, desperately anxious and 
unhappy, on the top step of the dark 
stairway, just outside her foster-mother’s 


NOBODY’S LITTLE GIRL 135 

door, came, not even kind-hearted Doc- 
tor Brown, but the business-like, white- 
capped nurse, with her curt message: 

“ Miss Sophia says you need not sit 
there any longer, Stella; Mrs. Waring 
is dead.” 

Now, indeed, it was all Miss Sophia’s 
house, she thought; and it “ pushed her 
out,” as she had said once when she first 
came to Laurel — pushed her away as 
with actual, bodily hands — a dark- 
skinned little alien, who did not “ be- 
long ” ! All of a sudden, she realized with 
dreadful sharpness that she was nothing, 
really, to that gentle soul who was gone, 
and who had pityingly taught the childish 
lips to call her “ mother.” No, she was 
no Waring except in name — much less 
a Spellman or a Russell; those ghostly 
portraits in the shuttered parlor below 
disowned and despised her; she was only 


136 


YELLOW STAR 


a stray — a foundling — only The-One- 
who-was-left- Alive. 

Yellow Star sprang up and darted 
down the colonial stairway and out the 
sacred front door. The graveled, box- 
bordered walk echoed her flying feet, 
and the elm-trees, straining against a 
rising wind, seemed to peer anxiously 
after the light figure as it sped by. Then 
the gate clicked and she was away — 
away on the wings of the summer wind 
— not walking, scarcely even running, 
but flying toward the only near refuge her 
spirit knew, the dear, green, lonely 
House in the Woods! 

Long before she could reach it, the 
storm broke. It was a storm that made 
timid Doris cower with her face hidden, 
there in her own mother’s cheerful sitting- 
room; even the weary Doctor thanked 
his stars that he had gotten safe home and 
his horse “ put up ” before the rain came. 


NOBODY’S LITTLE GIRL 137 

Yet it was not those silvery sheets of 
hissing water, drenching to the skin all 
who might be abroad, that one really 
minded — not at all! It was — ah! 
the play of forked lightnings, awfully 
bright, and the ear-splitting thunder- 
crash that could do no harm, one knew, 
but that was so dreadful for all that. 
Yellow Star’s Indian blood fairly curdled 
within her in the face of this close strife 
of the elements; for brave as her people 
truly were, the angry moods of nature 
were to them full of threat and awful 
personality. And yet, to-night, her grief 
was such that even the forked tongues of 
the “ Thunder Birds ” could not really 
terrify her, and she ran on. 

In the rude shelter raised by friendly 
hands and connected with some of the 
happiest hours of her short life, there 
among the grave neighbor pines hiding 
their frightened nestlings, the girl from 


138 


YELLOW STAR 


far Dakota cried aloud in long-forgotten 
Indian fashion — cried and mourned in 
rhythmic cadence, wild as the sobbing 
wind in the tree-tops — there told in her 
own dear tongue to those shivering sister 
woods all the secrets of her storm-tossed 
heart. 

“ Oh! ” she cried, standing straight up 
in the tiny shack and flinging her strong 
young arms above the streaming black 
head with a tragic gesture, “ oh, it is 
worse even than when I lost my own 
mother and was too young to know! I 
only knew what they told me — how 
they threw my poor Dakota mother into 
that awful pit, with no coffin and no 
prayer — and how I could never, never 
know her name or how she looked, or 
whether I was all the child she ever had, 
or anything! And the white man’s cruel 
bullets had torn her poor body . . . and 
yet in all her pain her last thought was 


NOBODY’S LITTLE GIRL 139 

for me ... to keep me warm and alive. 
I meant to prove that I was worth keeping 
alive . . . and I hoped she might, some- 
how, know. 

“ And then, there were those kind 
Indian women — Blue Earth's mother, 
and Mrs. Driving Hawk, and the rest, 
who took care of me as well as they could. 
They were poor and very frightened and 
most had babies of their own, and it was 
very, very kind of them to feed a useless 
little fretting baby without any relations, 
whose people had nearly all been killed 
by the soldiers of the Great Father at 
Washington. 

“ To be sure, I have often heard my 
dear Mother Waring say that when she 
found me I was very dirty, and looked 
hungry and miserable. Many of the 
Dakota children who had mothers and 
fathers, too, were hungry, and 'most all 
were dirty, I'm afraid, back there on the 


140 


YELLOW STAR 


reservation. It wasn’t all their fault; I 
know it wasn’t. 

“ I was about five when Mother War- 
ing took me away; very thin and ugly, 
and oh! so frightened of the white people! 
She used to tell me about it afterward, to 
make me laugh. She had my ragged little 
Dakota dress and moccasins put away, 
the ones I had on the day she took me 
home to her house, and washed and 
dressed and fed me, .and put me at night 
in a clean, white bed next her own. I 
cried half that first night, she told me, 
and begged to go back to the Indian 
camp, where I might curl up in a dirty 
quilt in any one of half a dozen smoky 
teepees. 

“ Then, after awhile, I got fat and con- 
tented, and I loved her dearly, and be- 
gan to be afraid of the Indian women. 
But she wouldn’t have that, either; she 
always made me shake hands with them, 


NOBODY’S LITTLE GIRL 141 

and wouldn’t let me forget my own 
language when I learned the English. 
And I went to church and Sunday School 
and learned about Our Father who art in 
heaven; and after a great while Father 
and Mother Waring seemed just like my 
real father and mother on earth. 

“ Then dear Father Waring left us and 
went to heaven, too; and we came to 
Laurel to live. It’s been beautiful here; 
all but Miss Sophia. I have so many 
friends in Laurel — I really did begin 
to think I belonged — and if I could 
only stay long enough to graduate, there 
are so many things I could do. 

“ But now I seem to see it all. Now 
Mother Waring is gone, I haven’t any 
folks, anywhere. Miss Sophia doesn’t 
love me a single bit. There are just Doris 
and her father and mother, and Cynthia 
and Grandma Brown and Uncle Si 
and Miss Morrison — yes, Ethan too, 


142 


YELLOW STAR 


though I haven't seen him for ever and 
ever so long — all just friends , not folks* 
— and I shall be left out of every- 
thing, again. Oh, dear! I am nobody's 
little girl! ” 

After supper that same evening, when 
the summer tempest had subsided to a 
gentle, purring down-pour of warm rain, 
and while Yellow Star, scarcely yet 
missed from the gloomy house of mourn- 
ing, lay exhausted with crying on her 
bed of boughs, in her wet garments, 
away out in Wolcott's Woods, her good 
friends were discussing her future and 
the practical bearings of her great loss, 
with true village simplicity. 

“ It's jest as I say, an' you can depend 
on't," insisted Grandma Brown. “ I 
ain't missed a funeral in these parts — 
not for forty-six years — that time I 
was bedfast, you recollect, Grampa? and 


NOBODY’S LITTLE GIRL 143 

old Deacon Hewitt went and turned up 
his toes. Furthermore, there ain’t ben 
a will made in Laurel all these years that 
I couldn’t tell ye the heft on’t. 

“ Deacon Spellman, he left that house 
an’ money in bank to his two darters, 
Lucy an’ Sophi’, an’ whichever one of 
’em was to die fust the hull went to the 
survivor. You’ll find out it’s so; an’ 
everything belongs to Sophi’ Spellman 
now, onless Lucy an’ her husband had 
contrived to save suthin’ out of his pay, 
which wasn’t no great, it stands to reason, 
him bein’ not only a minister but a 
missionary to the heathen.” 

“ I don’t know but you’re right, 
mother,” the Doctor admitted, taking his 
pipe out of his mouth and resting his 
grizzled head on the worn leather cushions 
of his chair, with a tired sigh. “ I do 
kind of hope, all the same, that some sort 
of provision will be made for that child 


144 


YELLOW STAR 


to finish her schooling. I should hate to 
see her packed off to the Indian reserva- 
tion now, when her heart’s set on gradu- 
ating; and Stella deserves to graduate if 
ever a girl did.” 

“ Of course I’m right, Ezry,” observed 
Grandma, crisply. “ And packed off 
she’ll be in short order, or I miss my 
guess.” 

“ It seems to me Sophia will want to do 
what’s right by her only sister’s adopted 
child,” was Mrs. Brown’s gentle sug- 
gestion, while Doris cried quietly, with 
her head buried in the sofa pillow. 

“ Seems to me, Emmeline,” Grandma 
countered, briskly, “ you’d orter know 
Sophi’ Spellman better by this time. 
She’s her granther Spellman over again; 
anybody outside the family connection 
was allers the dirt under his feet, in a 
manner of speakin’. Stella’s a good gal, 
an’ a smart gal, but she’s no kin to 


NOBODY’S LITTLE GIRL 145 

Sophi’ that I know of. An’ furthermore, 
she ain’t even white folks, an’ no Spell- 
man by birth and nater could put up 
with that — not if she had the parts of 
an angel. Jest you wait an’ see.” 

And, as usual, Grandma had the last 
word. 


CHAPTER XI 


JUST FRIENDS 

I T was on the very day after the 
funeral that Miss Sophia had an 
unexpected caller, in the person of 
Cynthia's father, the proprietor of the 
largest dry-goods and grocery store in 
Laurel. She privately wondered what 
he had come for, but received him with 
a civility as chilling as the atmosphere of 
her shrouded “ best room," and as un- 
bending as the tall, spare figure in its 
gloom of unrelieved black. 

Mr. Parker was a man of business, and 
went straight to the point. 

“ I hope you'll excuse my calling so 
soon, ma'am! I should be very sorry to 
intrude, but the fact is, I am particularly 


JUST FRIENDS 


147 


interested in — ah! — in a present mem- 
ber of your family.” 

Here Miss Sophia visibly stiffened, and 
the gentleman cleared his throat, and 
made a fresh beginning. 

“ If I may be allowed to refer to the 
prospects of your — ahem! of the late 
Mrs. Waring’s charge, I understand 
that it is proposed to — that her return 
to Dakota is — ah! — under considera- 
tion? ” 

“ As to Stella,” reluctantly responded 
Miss Sophia, “ I do not quite see — 
begging your pardon, Mr. Parker — 
why my plans for the girl should be of 
particular interest to my neighbors. How- 
ever, I have no objection to answering 
your question. Stella is sixteen — quite 
old enough to go to work, and, thanks 
to my sister’s possibly mistaken kindness, 
has a far better education than either her 
antecedents or her circumstances call for. 


148 


YELLOW STAR 


It is high time, in my opinion, that she 
was getting in touch with her own people, 
and becoming accustomed to their mode 
of life, to which she has so long been a 
stranger. 

“ Her own inheritance from an an- 
cestry of savages, Mr. Parker, betrays 
itself in such escapades as Stella indulged 
in on the night of my sister’s death, when 
she ran away to the woods in a violent 
thunderstorm, was found by your dog, I 
believe, and brought home after dark by 
Mr. Silas Wolcott from his place on the 
Bay road. Such distressing outbreaks 
render it desirable, certainly, from my 
point of view, that her return be not de- 
layed too long.” 

“ That’s about as I supposed, ma’am,” 
gravely assented Mr. Parker, “ and it is 
on that understanding that I have come 
here to-day to make a definite proposition 
to Miss Stella, and to you, as her 


JUST FRIENDS 


149 


guardian. It is simply this: that I offer 
her a home with me, as my daughter’s 
companion, for the next two years, or 
until she graduates from Laurel academy. 
She will be treated precisely like my own 
daughter, if she comes. I shall make 
her an allowance for dress, and so forth, 
and of course pay all of her expenses.” 

Poor Miss Sophia was taken entirely 
by surprise, and had to moisten her dry 
lips more than once before she could 
inquire : 

“ And what, may I ask, is your reason 
for this — this extraordinary offer? ” 

“ Miss Stella, ma’am,” responded Mr. 
Parker, with unmoved politeness, “ is, as 
you are perhaps aware, my daughter’s 
most intimate friend. Cynthia is an 
only child, and, I am sorry to say, rather 
a lonely one. She has her little peculiari- 
ties, Miss Spellman, like the rest of us, 
and her mother and I have every reason 


150 


YELLOW STAR 


to be satisfied with your ward’s in- 
fluence.” (Here Miss Sophia indulged 
in an unmistakable sniff.) 

“ In addition to this, my daughter 
firmly believes that Miss Stella saved her 
life from the Wolcott bull, not a great 
while ago, which of course puts us all in 
her debt; and, in short, Cynthia says 
that she will not graduate without her.” 
(Another sniff.) “ And besides,” firmly 
continued Mr. Parker, with perhaps a 
secret enjoyment of the situation, “ the 
fact is, ma’am, her friends all feel that 
Miss Stella is a girl of — ahem! — un- 
usual abilities, and ought by all means 
to complete her education.” 

“ Of course, Mr. Parker, I shall require 
some time to think this matter over.” 
Miss Sophia spoke rather feebly, after a 
long pause. “ The suggestion is an un- 
expected one, and — and — However, I 
shall mention it to the girl, and — 


JUST FRIENDS 


151 


By the way, Mr. Parker, you may not be 
aware that my sister left her by will all 
of her personal property, and a sum in 
savings-bank amounting to something 
over three hundred dollars. Stella is 
not exactly an object of chari ty.” 

The storekeeper was quite aware of 
this fact, as was everybody else in the 
village. The will had been drawn up 
by the local lawyer, who had deemed it 
necessary to keep his counsel no longer 
than till the funeral was over. However, 
Stella’s friends did not think the legacy 
of great importance, as bearing on the 
question in hand. Three hundred dollars 
was a nice little nest-egg for her, to be 
sure; but it would not cover her board, 
clothing and school expenses for two 
years. 

He simply bowed, therefore, and took 
up his hat as he replied, civilly: 

“ Certainly, certainly, ma’am; take 


152 


YELLOW STAR 


all the time you wish to talk the matter 
over with the young lady. When you 
and she have made up your minds, may 
I ask that you will communicate with 
me? ” 

At Miss Sophia's front door, the mer- 
chant encountered Doctor Brown. Al- 
most a personal encounter it was, for the 
big Doctor was in a hurry, as usual, and 
had stopped in upon urgent business, on 
his way to a patient. Miss Sophia was 
just on the point of escaping to her room, 
to consider this unprecedented inter- 
ference with her plans — rank imperti- 
nence, she was inclined to call it — when 
he bluntly detained her. 

“ No, no; I can't sit down. I sha'n't 
keep you a minute. It's just this. Stella 
Waring must have her chance. She must 
graduate from the academy, in the first 
place, and her little bit of money won't 
do the trick. My wife and I aren't rich, 


JUST FRIENDS 


153 


as you know, but there’s room under our 
roof for the child, especially if she’s 
willing to make herself useful — and I 
know she is, bless her heart! 

“ She can come to-morrow; we need 
her to wait on mother, help my wife 
about the house and be company for 
Doris, so she’ll give as much as she gets. 
Stella’s proud, Miss Sophia, and wouldn’t 
consent to be a burden to anybody. I 
want her to understand that she’ll be 
doing us a favor by coming. Talk it over 
with her, and let me know. Good day! ” 

Well, there was no way out of it; the 
whole matter must be laid before the girl 
herself. Distasteful as the task was, 
Miss Sophia must explain to her both 
offers and give her her choice; yes, and 
the further alternative of remaining where 
she was for two years longer. Upon 
mature consideration, and with her eyes 


154 


YELLOW STAR 


fully opened, at last, to Stella’s position 
and value in the community, this stiff- 
necked elderly Puritan was compelled to 
face the fact that the girl’s services were 
worth as much to her as to any one else; 
and the further fact that it would not 
“ look well,” in the eyes of her lifelong 
neighbors and townsfolk, if her dead 
sister’s foster-child should be obliged to 
find another home in Laurel. She could 
scarcely be packed off to the reservation 
willy-nilly; not with such influential 
friends on her side. 

Besides, it would be some satisfaction 
to get the better of that scheming Mr. 
Parker. Let him take his own medicine, 
and see how he liked it. And besides, 
when you really came down to it, what 
would she, Miss Sophia, do without her 
light-handed and swift-footed little at- 
tendant? Poor Lucy was gone, and 
Stella was the only one, now, who knew 


JUST FRIENDS 


155 


all their ways. Must she be at the mercy 
of a Mrs. Maloney in her old age? So for 
hours she sat and thought till her old 
head fairly spun, and the subject was 
broached to a subdued and red-eyed 
Stella that very evening. 

“ Oh, Jibby darling! to think of your 
really and truly coming to live with us! 
Oh, isn’t Daddy the very nicest man that 
ever lived? He never refused me any- 
thing; not if I had set my heart on it, you 
know. And I told him that if you didn’t 
graduate, then I wouldn’t, either; and 
the very day I was eighteen I was going 
out to Dakota to join you on your own 
land, and run that ranch we always 
talked about. He only said: ‘ Tut, tut, 
daughter; we’ll do better than that.’ 

“ And even mother’s glad, because I do 
bother her sometimes when she has a 
headache, and now she can play bridge 


156 


YELLOW STAR 


all day, if she likes. You and me’ll see 
to everything, won’t we, Jibby? You are 
coming, aren’t you, darling dear? ” 

Thus Cynthia in one breath, flinging 
herself upon her friend’s neck the next 
morning, in the prim garden of the old 
Spellman homestead, among the old- 
fashioned posies, day-lilies and bleeding- 
heart and wonderful rose-hued peonies, 
while Scotty, with the demonstrative 
jealousy of his kind, stood upon his 
gaunt hind legs and thrust his cold nose 
between the loving pair. 

Doris, prettier than ever in all the 
dignity of her ankle-long skirts and 
“ Psyche knot ” of honey-colored hair, 
noted Stella’s hesitating silence and 
cannily began, feeling her way: 

“ You know, Jibby, Grandma is getting 
old and feeble, and she does like you 
better’n ’most any one. She won’t let 
even me do for her as she will you, Stella 


JUST FRIENDS 


157 


Waring! I don’t see how you manage 
to bewitch everybody the way you do. 

“ Uncle Si says, dummed if he wouldn’t 
like nothing better than for you to come 
out there and be his little housekeeper. 
Think of that! He never forgot that 
breakfast you got for him the day Cynthia 
was chased by the bull; and he says that 
for nobody else in this endurin’ world 
would he have hitched up the critters long 
after bed-time of a wet night. I don’t 
know when he’s been out after eight 
o’clock ’cept that night he took you 
home. Well, aren’t you ever going 
to speak? We all want you, Stella; now 
which is it going to be? ” 

Yellow Star faced her two friends with 
almost a tragic gesture of out-flung arms, 
and the rare tears in her soft, black eyes. 

“ Darlings,” she cried, “ you are all 
too sweet for anything, and I shall never 
forget it as long as I live. To think that 


158 


YELLOW STAR 


I have such friends! But do you know, 
the most wonderful part of it all is, Miss 
Sophia wants me too! 

“ She’s getting old, you see, and she 
isn’t used to doing for herself, and she 
really does need me, girls. Don’t look 
like that, Cynthia; she’s my dear, dear 
Mother Waring’s only sister — the only 
near kin she had in this world — so she 
used to say. Girls, I know I should be 
perfectly happy with either of you, but 
I can’t leave Miss Sophia — she’s folks. 
I know I can take care of her, and here 
is where I belong .” 

And, of course, that settled it. 


CHAPTER XII 


HERBS AND SIMPLES 

M ISS SOPHIA, notwithstanding 
the unexpected turn that affairs 
had taken, had by no means 
relinquished her point of view. No sooner 
was she satisfied that Stella would not 
desert her post for any other offer, how- 
ever flattering, than she recovered herself 
sufficiently to make quite clear to the 
girl her changed footing in the Spellman 
household. 

“ Our work is light,” she announced, 
coldly, “ and I shall expect you to earn 
your board. I have no doubt you prefer 
to be independent, as far as possible. I 
will pay such bills as are necessary, but 
there must be no more extras nor non- 
sense, mind. As for clothes, you’ll 


160 


YELLOW STAR 


scarcely outgrow them now, and my 
sister kept you so generously supplied 
that I should not think you would need 
anything new for a long time. A girl in 
your position must not expect to dress 
as well as a prosperous man like Mr. 
Parker or Dr. Brown can afford to dress 
his daughter.” 

Yellow Star said nothing, but she was 
not slow to take a hint, and she made up 
her mind then and there never to ask 
Miss Sophia for a dollar or a new dress. 
Neither did she want to draw any of her 
precious money out of the savings-bank 
where Mother Waring had placed it for 
her, on their first coming to Laurel. 

She was quick and capable; all the 
housework for two, except laundry and 
heavy cleaning, now fell to her share, and 
took up nearly all her time, out of school. 
However, there was the long summer 
vacation to plan for; and in the spring 


HERBS AND SIMPLES 161 

after Mrs. Waring’s death, Stella began 
to seek and to find opportunities for 
earning small sums of money. She de- 
livered hats for the local milliner and 
gowns for the village dressmaker. She 
took a neighbor’s baby out in his carriage 
on fine days, at ten cents an errand or an 
airing. One April afternoon, Doctor 
Brown found her on her knees with basket 
and trowel, grubbing up dandelions in 
Miss Sophia’s front yard. 

“ She pays me a cent apiece, because 
she doesn’t like to see them in her grass,” 
Stella explained, gravely. Miss Sophia 
had at least a sense of justice, and 
although she exacted full service of the 
orphan, to the utmost equivalent of her 
modest living, she would not ask her to 
do out-of-door work without paying for 
it. She had been going to hire a boy for 
the dandelions, and Stella had begged for 
the chance. 


162 


YELLOW STAR 


“ Why, my child, you’ll soon be a 
Croesus at that rate,” laughed the good 
Doctor. 

“ I really need the money for a new 
dress,” pursued Stella, who was thor- 
oughly in earnest. “ Miss Frost, the 
dressmaker, would like to have me help 
her in my spare time; I can make good 
buttonholes, and she’ll pay me thirty 
cents a dozen. But I would so much 
rather do something out-of-doors. You 
see, I am indoors nearly all the time, with 
my books and the housework, and I’m 
starving for some fresh air.” 

“ Ahem! ” The Doctor cleared his 
throat and took the matter under con- 
sideration. He would have dearly liked 
to put his big, generous hand in his 
pocket and buy the new dress, but he was 
half afraid the child wouldn’t take it — 
or, even if she would, how about that 
dawning sense of personal independence? 


HERBS AND SIMPLES 


163 


No, no! let her earn the dress, especially 
since she was wisely choosing the open- 
air tasks that should soon restore its 
color and roundness to the eager, appeal- 
ing young face. 

“ Sensible girl! ” he approved. “ Do 
you know, Stella, those dandelion roots 
you are digging have medicinal value? 
The wholesale drug-stores will pay you a 
few cents a pound for them, when they’re 
properly washed and dried. There’s 
burdock, too, and tansy, and — let me 
see — wild mustard and boneset, be- 
side several more. You must gather the 
seed-pods of the mustard, and the leaves 
and tops of boneset and tansy. They’re 
all worth money; and all as common as 
dirt hereabouts. The farmers ought to 
pay you, too, for helping to get rid of 
them; almost every one I’ve named is a 
troublesome pest.” 

“ Oh, Doctor Brown! How perfectly 


164 


YELLOW STAR 


splendid!” Stella clasped her long, 
brown hands eagerly, still kneeling on the 
soft turf, and once more the dull glow 
crept up in her quiet cheek. “ I know 
them all now except the tansy, and 
you’ll show me that, won’t you? And 
tell me just where to take them. It will 
be exactly what my own mother and her 
mother must have done many a time — 
digging roots and herbs for medicine. 
There’s nothing else in the whole world 
I should like so much.” 

“ Yes, it was I set her up in business, 
and a fair sort of business it’s turning 
out,” chuckled the Doctor some three 
months later, from the depths of his 
shabby easy chair. “ Not a fortune in it, 
of course; but she makes seventy-five 
cents or a dollar many days, with Cyn- 
thia’s help. Why aren’t you out with 
them, Doris? Afraid of a freckle or two 


HERBS AND SIMPLES 


165 


my girl? Well, health is beauty, and 
their long days in the sun and air, close 
to the life-giving earth, will be worth 
more than a fortune to them.” 

Doris tossed her pretty head, from her 
favorite perch in the broad window-seat, 
where she was putting careful stitches 
in the daintiest of shirt waists. 

“ The hot sun and the stooping over 
give me a headache,” she complained. 
She loved Jibby as much as ever, of 
course, but the sacrifice of that apple- 
blossom complexion to the Sun-God was 
too much to expect. 

“ When I was a girl,” her mother ob- 
served, “ I used to be told that it made a 
young girl coarse and blowsy to expose 
her skin to the wind and sun. Why, I 
never thought of going out in summer 
without shade-hat, gloves and a veil; and 
nowadays the girls won’t wear any one 
of them.” 


166 


YELLOW STAR 


a I d ; know what the present genera- 
tion’s cornin’ to,” agreed Grandpa Brown, 
discontentedly. “ This new-fangled idee 
of livin’ outdoors is suthin’ I don’t take 
no stock in, fer one. Houses was made to 
be lived in, says I; more specially for the 
wimmen folks. It used to be thought 
ondecent to sleep aout; an’ if folks had 
sot a table in the back yard for comp’ny, 
you’d of said they’d gone plump crazy. 
I dunno whether ’twas Stella set the 
fashion, or mebbe that school-teacher 
from up-state that was always gassin’ 
’bout ‘ fresh-air;’ but anyhow, Laurel’s 
got the disease, an’ got it bad.” 

“ When him an’ me went to house- 
keeping” chimed in Grandma, briskly, 
“ folks nailed all the winders down hard 
an’ fast before ’Lection day, an’ never 
took the nails out till spring cleanin’. 
We didn’t hold with warmin’ all out- 
doors, like they ’pear to nowadays. 


HERBS AND SIMPLES 


167 


Considerin’ them nailed-up winders, an’ 
the things we ate an’ drunk, an’ the germs 
we hadn’t never heard of, I’ve never 
rightly onderstood, Ezry, how you ’count 
for Grampa an’ me bein’ as peart as we 
be, an’ both on us goin’ on for seventy- 
seven.” 

“ Speakin’ of vittles, I ain’t never felt 
the same sence they took away my pie 
for breakfust,” grumbled Grandpa, and 
everybody laughed. 

Doctor Brown lit his pipe and retired 
behind the newspaper, but found himself 
thinking less about State politics and the 
rise in certain stocks than about the new 
idea that his father had unwittingly let 
fall. Yes, there was no doubt about it; 
it was his little favorite and Miss Morri- 
son, between them, who had boldly 
thrown open the windows and waked up 
the sleepy children in stuffy school- 
rooms, who had set the fashion of long 


168 


YELLOW STAR 


cross-country walks among the younger 
set, had revived toboggan parties and 
skeeing and “ one-day camps,” who had, 
in short, conducted an effective “ anti- 
tuberculosis campaign ” under the dis- 
guise of “ fun.” He had not realized 
before how much they were all indebted 
to that natural hunger for fresh air, so 
naively confessed by his “ outdoor girl.” 

“ Though it is bad for my business — 
and the undertaker’s,” he humorously 
admitted to himself. 

On that same midsummer day, Stella 
herself, with loyal Cynthia at her side 
and Scotty acting alternately as scout 
and rear-guard, was harvesting a field 
yellow with feathery wild mustard, down 
at “ Uncle Si’s place.” That eccentric 
bachelor had offered to pay handsomely 
for the extermination of the weed by 
gathering its seed, and this bounty, to- 


HERBS AND SIMPLES 169 

gether with the market price of five 
cents a pound, had spurred the girls to 
unusual exertions. 

The work was hard, and they had been 
at it steadily for two or three hours, 
when, with shoulders that ached from 
stooping and faces glowing with heat, 
they straightened up at last, and looked 
longingly over toward the cool shade of 
Wolcott’s Woods. 

“ Let’s get a drink at the spring, and 
then sit under that tree awhile and rest,” 
begged Cynthia. “ I’ve got some sand- 
wiches and a splendid book in my 
pocket.” 

“ Well,” consented Stella, “ I suppose 
we might. You’ve helped like a Trojan, 
Sin, and I ’most know I’m going to have 
money enough for my new fall suit. I 
don’t want to disgrace our class, you 
know,” she added, merrily. 

But long before they reached the giant 


170 


YELLOW STAR 


maple that cast its green shade over a 
far corner of the field, Sir Walter began 
to bark wildly, and to make excited little 
dashes forward and runs backward, after 
his usual idiotic fashion when trouble 
was in the wind. 

“ What do you suppose is the matter 
with him, Jibby? ” Sin demanded. 

Stella gave a long, searching look ahead 
and calmly answered: 

“ There’s a man lying down under that 
tree.” 

“A man! Oh, Jibby! what shall we 
do? Hadn’t we better run home as fast 
as we can? ” 

“ Let’s go a little nearer and see who 
it is, first,” suggested the other, suiting 
the action to the word. 

“ It’s a tramp, or somebody dreadful, 
I know,” Sin declared, but she would not 
desert her friend, and both girls, escorted 
by the cringing Sir Walter, drew near to 


HERBS AND SIMPLES 


171 


the prone figure of a poorly dressed, black- 
bearded man, whose hat, stick and bundle 
lay at his side. 

“ How perfectly horrid he looks! ” 
Cynthia shuddered under her breath. 
“ It's a tramp or a nasty peddler, and he’s 
either drunk or asleep. For goodness’ 
sake, Stella, don’t go any nearer! ” 

“ He looks sick to me . . . and hungry 
. . . and out of work,” her friend piti- 
fully declared. “ Perhaps he hasn’t any 
place to go. He can’t hurt us, and Scotty 
would protect us, anyway. (Down, sir!) 
Get some water, quick, Cynthia! he’s 
had a sunstroke or something,” and 
she bent over the “ horrid man ” and 
loosened his coarse shirt at the neck, 
moistened the livid face with the tin cup 
of cold water that Cynthia hastened to 
fetch, and fanned him with her broad- 
brimmed hat. 

When in a few minutes he came to 


172 


YELLOW STAR 


himself, he was barely able to speak, and 
that in a broken sort of lingo that the 
girls could make little of, but dog-like 
gratitude looked out of the lusterless 
black eyes. Stella’s strong young arms 
helped to raise him to a more comfortable 
position, and Cynthia knelt down and 
eagerly fed him bits of bread-and-butter 
from her lunch-box. 

“ Go to Uncle Si, please! ” directed 
Stella. “ He will know what we ought to 
do. I shall stay here, with Sir Walter to 
take care of me, till you come back.” 

But it was while she was still patiently 
fanning the stranger and trying to piece 
out a meaning from his foreign looks 
and words, that Stella was attracted 
by fresh activity on the part of the 
dog, who had lain apparently asleep at 
her feet. She looked up, and saw a tall, 
lightly built young man coming rapidly 
toward her, his serious face breaking 


HERBS AND SIMPLES 173 

into smiles as he noticed her start of 
pleased surprise. 

“ Why, Ethan! is it really you? Where 
did you come from? ” she cried, springing 
to her feet, but quite forgetting to hold 
out her hand. The Sioux are not demon- 
strative in the matter of greetings. 

Ethan, however, did not hesitate to 
take prompt possession of the little brown 
hand and press it warmly for a minute, 
as he looked into the soft, child-like eyes 
which met his with the old simplicity. 

“ Gad, but she’s a winner! Just about 
twice as handsome and ten times as 
magnetic as she promised to be, two 
years ago,” thought the boy, but he 
only said : 

“ Oh, I just ran down for a few days 
to see Uncle Si and all the folks! College 
opens in three weeks, you know — my 
last year. Uncle and I were busy talking 
over old times and the prospects of the 


174 


YELLOW STAR 


crops, and the convivial moment had just 
arrived with the buttermilk, when Cyn- 
thia appeared, all out of breath, and from 
her story I judged I’d better come and 
look after you without loss of time. 

“ So this is your tramp, eh? The poor 
chap looks harmless enough, to be sure, 
but for all that it was a risky thing 
to do, for a girl. I suppose you ‘ wanted 
to help 9 like that time I had to 
fetch you home at ten o’clock at night 
from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West — do you 
remember? ” 

The girl’s rich color deepened a trifle 
under his openly admiring eyes, as he 
added, pleasantly: 

“ He’s better now, thanks to the little 
Samaritan; a green Polander out of a 
job, I should say at a guess. Suppose I 
toll him over to Uncle Si’s place and try 
to persuade the old fellow that he wants 
an extra hand? 


HERBS AND SIMPLES 


175 


“ But if you often get into such 
scrapes, I don’t see how you could keep 
it up very long without me to help you 
out, Stella.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


INDIAN HOSPITALITY 

A MONG the hoarded possessions of 
gentle “ Mother Waring ” which 
fell to her little girl, was a large 
and varied collection of Indian photo- 
graphs. Stella had often turned them 
over and over, with almost painful in- 
terest; she did so once again; and after 
choosing with great care a single one, 
laid all the rest away. 

The picture that now stood conspicu- 
ously on her old-fashioned bureau was 
a large one taken in Washington many 
years earlier. It showed a group of three 
strong faces belonging to leading men of 
the Sioux in the middle of the nineteenth 
century — the last, indeed, of their tribal 
leaders, trained in native ways. 


INDIAN HOSPITALITY 177 

“ I don’t think that’s a very pretty 
picture,” remarked Cynthia, carelessly, 
one day when the three friends had 
gathered in Stella’s little chamber up 
under the eaves. “ Why didn’t you pick 
out that one in the beaded shirt and 
eagle-feather war-bonnet down to his 
heels? ” 

“ I liked the cunning little baby in its 
mother’s arms,” Doris suggested. 

“ Or that perfectly splendid young 
Indian man who’s in college somewhere, 
going to be a minister,” persisted Sin. 
“ Seems to me these old Indians in long 
hair and plain clothes are rather a hard- 
looking crowd,” she added. 

It was often difficult for Stella to ex- 
plain herself. She was silent now, but her 
cheeks took on the dark flush they wore 
when she was deeply moved. Cynthia 
saw it, and hastened to add: 

“ After all, though, there’s something 


178 


YELLOW STAR 


pretty fine about them. That one in the 
middle, now; isn’t he sort of solid and 
hard and grand, like a big, gray boulder 
— or — or a charging buffalo? ” 

“ I like to look at them every day,” 
murmured Stella, at last, with a grateful 
glance. Cynthia always understood; per- 
haps not just at first, but in time she was 
sure to understand. “ You see, girls, 
those were real men ; strong and just, 
faithful and truth-speaking. They were 
men who talked little and did much. We 
younger Indians who float along like 
chips on the current need to keep before 
our eyes the old strength of our race. 
Those faces seem to me carved, as you 
say, just like out of solid rock.” 

A day or two later, a little knot of 
academy girls were all trying to talk at 
once, in excited voices of which only 
snatches could be heard. 


INDIAN HOSPITALITY 


179 


“ I shouldn’t think she’d want to push 
herself in where she isn’t wanted. . . 

“ Nobody’ll speak to her if she does 
come.” 

“ Just as if our crowd cared to as- 
sociate with shop-girls and — ” 

Apparently it was all an affair of the 
social club with the mysterious initials, 
which had held regular meetings since 
their sophomore year. It was a club that 
took pleasure in being exclusive, and had 
little regard for the point of view of the 
excluded. How foolish it was of them to 
feel sore or resentful! Rosey Bernstein, 
undoubtedly a star pupil, was vulgarly 
witty at the expense of the club and its 
unimportant secrets and foolish little 
mysteries. 

There had never been any question 
about Stella’s membership — Stella whom 
she and two or three others had been 
inclined to persecute in the early days, 


180 


YELLOW STAR 


but had given it up when they found to 
their surprise that the word “ Indian ” 
was held a title of honor, rather than a 
term of reproach. In scholarship they 
were neck and neck; but what won 
Rosey completely was the Indian girl’s 
unaffected admiration of the fat Bernstein 
baby, of whom the whole family was 
inordinately proud. Babies were Stella’s 
weak point, anyway. 

But we are losing sight of our con- 
versation, which concerned, not Rosey or 
Mary Maloney, but a little girl who had 
been obliged to drop out of her class in 
their Senior year, and go to work in the 
factory to help support a large family. 

Poor Milly was so slight, so shy, so 
unpretending, that it did seem as if she 
might have been allowed to slip in with- 
out remark among her more fortunate 
classmates, on the Saturday half-holiday. 
It was soon settled, however, that she was 


INDIAN HOSPITALITY 181 

“ not their kind at all,” that it had been 
all a mistake having her in the first place, 
and she must be made to feel that now 
she had left school she ought of course to 
resign from the Club. There being no 
dissent from this proposition, the girls 
were about to take up the programme for 
their next meeting, when a clear young 
voice with the least bit of foreign accent 
suddenly broke in upon the talk. 

“ Girls, I’ve been reading in an old 
book how the New England Indians made 
the first white men welcome and gave 
them the best they had, and how the 
poor exiles here and in Virginia would 
have starved many times if it hadn’t 
been for the Indians’ corn. I wondered, 
just at first, why they did it, because the 
strangers were so different, and you 
know we don’t usually like people who are 
a different color or race or even dress or 
live differently. And then I remembered 


182 


YELLOW STAR 


that we Indians are always taught to be 
kind to strangers — to feed even our 
enemies if they come to us hungry or in 
trouble — what you call hospitality . The 
Christian white people don’t teach their 
children hospitality, do they? ” 

There was a minute’s surprised silence. 

“ After all, girls, it won’t hurt us a bit 
to let Milly come whenever she can; 
prob’ly it won’t be very often,” hesi- 
tated Doris. 

“ Have any of you seen her lately? ” 
Cynthia broke in. “ She was always 
little, you know, but now! Why, there’s 
nothing to her at all. She looks just as 
neat and nice as ever, but oh my! Just 
as if she didn’t get enough to eat. Her 
father doesn’t work regularly, you know; 
and her mother was in the hospital six 
months; Milly earns three dollars a week 
and has to work from seven in the morning 
until six at night, except Saturday after- 


INDIAN HOSPITALITY 183 

noons and Sundays. I asked her why 
she hadn’t been to Sunday-school lately, 
and she said she spent all day Sunday 
washing and ironing her clothes, because 
she was so tired she simply couldn’t do 
it evenings; but I think it was partly 
because she dreaded meeting the girls 
she used to go with.” 

Here Doris began to cry quietly, and 
the other girls, who were really good- 
hearted enough at bottom, looked so 
ashamed of themselves that Stella slipped 
away as soon as she could. 

“ There’s one thing more I must speak 
about, girls,” she said, as soon as the 
three inseparables were out of hearing. 
“ You know I haven’t taken my turn at 
entertaining the Club — and this is our 
third year — and each of you has had 
them at your house two or three times. 
I’ve been thinking and thinking.” 

“ Oh, don’t, Jibby darling! ” cried 


184 


YELLOW STAR 


Doris, distressed. “ Nobody expects you 
to entertain; we all understand.” 

“ Everybody in Laurel knows Miss 
Sophia ,'' declared Cynthia, with bitter 
emphasis. 

“ I can't help it; I must do something 
for the others, just once! No, I can't 
ask Miss Sophia to have them at her 
house, even if I buy all the refresh- 
ments with my own money. She is very 
particular about her floors — and the 
dishes — a cup might get broken or 
something. But oh, Doris! do you sup- 
pose Uncle Si — ? ” 

“ Why, of course! why didn't we think 
of it before? A picnic in Wolcott's Woods; 
why, it would be just scrumptious ! ” in- 
terrupted Doris, while irrepressible Sin 
seized an arm of each and whirled them 
round and round till all were laughing 
and out of breath. 

“ How about a week from Saturday? ” 


INDIAN HOSPITALITY 185 

“ It’s nearly always fine, this time of 
year.” “ How will you get us all out 
there? ” “ What shall you have to eat, 

Jibby? ” Poor Stella was fairly buried 
under the rush of eager questions and 
exclamations. 

When the great day came at last, a 
perfect afternoon in late September, Uncle 
Si’s springless farm wagon, cushioned 
with golden oat straw and drawn by a 
pair of sleek, black horses, rumbled mer- 
rily from door to door through the village, 
taking in some fifteen happy passengers. 
The first surprise came when it was 
found that not only shrinking little Milly, 
but every girl in the class was of the 
party. It had been Stella’s shy request 
to have the “ undesirables ” as her per- 
sonal guests for the day, and that inno- 
cent little remark about “ Christian white 
people ” had somehow made it uncom- 


186 YELLOW STAR 

fortable to refuse. The “ B. N.’s ” had 
yet to discover how much more satis- 
faction there is in getting people in than 
in merely keeping them out. 

The democratic “ straw ride,” a re- 
vival of an all but forgotten fashion, took 
exceedingly well, and it was a well- 
shaken-together crowd that tumbled out 
at Uncle’s “ spring house,” where de- 
licious, ice-cold buttermilk, sweet milk, 
or pure spring water was served to 
everybody. Of course, the girls’ throats 
were dry from much singing and shouting, 
so that nothing could have been better. 
H The next stop was at the big hay-barn, 
where all were invited to hunt for eggs in 
the clean, sweet-smelling mows. This 
was great fun ; and when the eggs proved 
to be hard-boiled, the plan of this pro- 
gressive picnic began to declare itself. 

At the kitchen door, which stood in- 
vitingly open, stood a beaming neighbor 


INDIAN HOSPITALITY 187 

woman with a bucket of steaming coffee 
and a basket of fried chickens, done to a 
turn, and these were quickly conveyed to 
the near-by apple orchard, where a few 
boards and sawhorses had been converted 
into a rustic table, fancifully decorated 
with ferns and autumn leaves in Cyn- 
thia's original style. 

But the nicest surprise of all was a 
blazing bonfire at a convenient distance, 
with — yes, it was actually Ethan, 
attired as an Indian brave and lavishly 
feathered, bending dutifully over it, 
flanked by a mammoth heap of late 
roasting ears. 

After the substantials had been con- 
sumed, somebody offered a prize for the 
biggest apple, which was easily won by 
Cynthia, the best climber and biggest 
tom-boy in the crowd. Meanwhile, a 
huge, frosted cake had appeared upon the 
table, Doris' mother's contribution to 


188 


YELLOW STAR 


the feast, and Ethan slyly suggested that 
treasure was sometimes found in wood- 
peckers’ nests, which led to another 
joyous scramble, and the discovery of 
handfuls of pop-corn balls and Shaker 
sweetmeats in tempting hollows of the 
old apple-trees. 

By-and-by the whole company gath- 
ered in a circle around the dying bonfire, 
and Cynthia, with apparent unpremedita- 
tion, proposed an hour of story-telling. 

Doris set the ball rolling with the very 
old tale of the Ash and the Elm, the 
father and mother of mankind, as told 
by the Abenakis, the Indians of New 
England. Both trees grew in Uncle’s 
door-yard; and her hearers, looking up, 
seemed to realize for the first time the 
graceful femininity of the drooping elm, 
and the sturdiness of the more robust and 
straight-limbed ash-tree. 

“ There was once a chief who had three 


INDIAN HOSPITALITY 189 

daughters,” began Rosey, promptly, 
“ and the youngest daughter was much 
the prettiest, so that all the young men 
wanted to marry her. After all, she mar- 
ried the Turtle, who was very lazy, and 
lounged about the camp-fire while the 
others fished and hunted. They all hated 
him because he had won the handsomest 
girl in the village, and yet did nothing to 
keep her. One day, they caught him out 
of sight of home, and at once told him 
that they had decided to build a big fire, 
and roast him alive. 

“ 1 Ah, that is what I like! ’ boasted 
the Turtle. ‘ You can’t get it too warm to 
suit me.’ 

“ Then some one suggested that they 
had better drown him instead, and the 
Turtle appeared to be much worried. 
He cried and begged for mercy, but they 
seized hold of him in spite of his strug- 
gles, and threw him into the lake near by. 


190 


YELLOW STAR 


“ ‘ Ha, ha! now I am at home ! 7 ex- 
claimed the Turtle, and he dived down 
into the cool water and left them all 
gaping and angrier than ever.” 

After everybody had laughed at the 
expense of the disappointed suitors, Cyn- 
thia began the story of Lox, the mischief- 
maker, who one day uprooted a wild 
plum-tree and set it on his head, so that 
he scattered ripe fruit as he walked. 

“ Pretty soon,” related Sin, “ he met 
two fun-loving girls, who begged that 
they too might be allowed to wear such 
charming and surprising head-dresses. 

“ So Lox planted on each of their heads 
a small plum-tree, by his magic power 
fastening the roots firmly in their long 
black hair. The girls went home very 
proud and pleased, and soon found them- 
selves the talk of the village. 

“ After a while they grew tired of being 
pointed at, as well as of carrying the 


INDIAN HOSPITALITY 191 

plum-trees on their heads, and each tried 
to pull the other’s tree out by the roots. 
They pulled and pulled with all their 
might, and at last they got them out; 
but, because all their beautiful hair was 
pulled out too, the girls cried bitterly, and 
wished they had not been so foolish.” 

So it went all round the ring; and 
when it came the turn of their hostess, 
she could scarcely speak for surprise and 
pleasure in the pretty compliment to her 
well-loved people. After she had capped 
the climax with one of her best Dakota 
tales , 1 they were all delighted to hear 
the sound of a rustic, rollicking dance- 
tune played on the old fiddle by Uncle 
Si himself, who had certainly entered into 
the spirit of the occasion with all the 
zest of a boy. 

Uncle was sitting out on the side porch 

1 For the story told by Stella, see “ Wigwam Evenings 
by Charles A. and Elaine G. Eastman. 


192 


YELLOW STAR 


in his shirt-sleeves, and there was a 
nice, level stretch of turf inviting to the 
dance. Tune followed tune until every- 
body was out of breath, and the frolic 
ended with a weird, make-believe “ Ghost 
Dance,” and a most realistic scalp-dance, 
in which the girls held at arms’ length 
one another’s fallen tresses, while going 
through steps and figures that would 
certainly have put an Indian brave to the 
blush. 

The sun was getting low when the 
straw-lined Cinderella’s coach, driven by 
Ethan this time, drew up at the farm- 
house porch for its happy freight of tired 
girls. It really did seem as if the class 
of 19 — had never known each other so 
well before, never felt so close to the soil 
and so pleasantly alive to the spirits of 
the past, as after they had shared the 
hospitality of the Indian girl and her big- 
hearted Uncle Si. 


CHAPTER XIV 

AN END AND A BEGINNING 

T HE three “ Clover Leaves ” will 
never, never forget their last year 
at the little old academy. The 
square, white tower with its peremptory, 
sweet-toned bell that dominated their 
waking hours and all but ruled their 
dreams; the arm-in-arm saunter from 
school through autumn’s mellow haze, 
or gay exchange of greetings on the crisp 
winter air; the stiff portions of Latin 
and French and mathematics sweetened 
with girlish mirth and nonsense; the 
Senior dance and the Senior play and all 
the new-made dignities of that momen- 
tous year — these still haunt the charmed 
halls of memory, among the sweetest 
ghosts of life’s phantom past. 


194 


YELLOW STAR 


And with it all, with all the modest 
ambitions and the innocent vanities, 
there was mingled many a longing or an 
anxious thought of “ what next ” — of 
the real problems that lay beyond that 
mysterious closed door. 

For most of the boys the next thing was 
work — just plain, every-day work on 
the farm or in the shop; for a few, both 
boys and girls, it was college or normal, 
and then school-teaching or another pro- 
fession. Doris and her mother had no 
thought but of the dear home duties 
and the small social triumphs that beck- 
oned so plainly, when the pretty, only 
daughter should have “ finished her edu- 
cation.” But Cynthia and Stella were 
of a different mold, and they passed 
many a happy hour in sharing their 
confidences and their dreams, which 
ranged all the way from that ranch in 
Dakota on Stella’s allotment, which they 


AN END AND A BEGINNING 195 

were to run together, riding their own 
range triumphantly in the approved cow- 
girl fashion, to the glorious vision of 
Stella as a famous doctor and Cynthia 
as a great artist. 

The modest business in herbs and 
simples had led its votary to pursue her 
botany a little further, and make a 
special study of medicinal plants. She 
was often discovered hidden away in a 
corner of Doctor Brown's office, eagerly 
comparing “ Gray ” with the “ Materia 
Medica; ” and she found, too, that 
Grandma Brown was more than ready 
to impart the neglected virtues of mullein 
and catnip, dock and sassafras, some of 
which Stella tested by personal experi- 
ment, while the girls began teasingly 
to call her the “ Yarb-Doctor.” 

Doctor Brown secretly believed noth- 
ing beyond the capacity of his favorite, 
but he conscientiously meant not to 


196 


YELLOW STAR 


encourage ambitions that it might be 
impossible to realize. 

“ Those hands of Stella's,” he im- 
pulsively remarked one day, when her 
future was under discussion, letting his 
sage eyes rest meditatively upon the 
long, supple, sensitive members — “ well, 
they do say such hands can only belong 
to a doctor or a musician.” 

“ Or a mother,” unexpectedly mur- 
mured his wife. 

He gave her a quick, approving look, 
and again the warm blood glowed in the 
Indian girl's dark cheek. She suddenly 
remembered how Ethan had been telling 
her of his plans to study medicine the 
next year, and how she had listened 
with all her heart in her face, and at 
last cried out without thinking: 

“ Oh, I wish, how I wish I could be 
a doctor, too! ” 

She remembered vividly the peculiar 


AN END AND A BEGINNING 197 

look in his eyes as he gently an- 
swered : 

“ I could wish it too — unless — un- 
less you were meant for something even 
better, Stella.” 

And she had not understood at all. 

Before the March sun began to melt 
the snow-drifts, Stella’s friends got to- 
gether privately and laid their plans to 
present her with her Commencement 
Day outfit. She had worn all winter the 
trim suit and modest hat purchased with 
her summer’s work in the fields, after 
the rows of drying shelves in Miss 
Sophia’s garret had been cleared of their 
aromatic burden. And oddly charming 
she looked in them — like a symphony 
in browns, with her gleaming agate skin 
and the intense black of hair and eyes for 
contrast. But the “ weed money ” was 
all gone, and there was no time for extra 


198 


YELLOW STAR 


earning that last, busy year. Surely she 
could not be so wickedly proud as to 
reject an offering of true love. 

Mr. Parker insisted upon purchasing 
the dress — a duplicate of Cynthia’s. 
It was fine handkerchief linen, and Mrs. 
Brown, who made all Doris’ clothes, 
would make it up simply and beautifully, 
while Doris devoted all her spare minutes 
for weeks to certain individual touches 
of hand embroidery. Cynthia recklessly 
squandered a whole month’s pocket- 
money on the long, white suede gloves, 
and Grandma Brown unearthed from 
among her girlhood’s treasures a sandal- 
wood fan of delicious memory. 

Doctor Brown brought home one day 
a small watch cased in gun-metal with 
Stella’s name on it, and Miss Morrison, 
who had gone back to the city to teach, 
sent a long, curiously wrought gun-metal 
chain. 


AN END AND A BEGINNING 199 


But the most surprising contributions 
came from Uncle Si Wolcott and Miss 
Sophia. Uncle Si actually “ hitched up ” 
and drove to Westwood for the finest 
pair of bronze slippers and bronze silk 
stockings to be bought with money. 
Miss Sophia had tatted a handkerchief, 
but being impressed at the last minute 
with the apparent meanness of her 
offering as compared with the others, 
she unlocked a certain bureau drawer 
and took from it a quaint comb of 
carved ivory, fetched home from China 
by a seafaring ancestor, which gave the 
crowning touch to Stella’s strange beauty, 
set in the swirling masses of her blue- 
black hair. 

The girl laughed and cried when she 
saw them, forgetting for once all her 
Indian stoicism, and stroked the lovely 
frock with reverent fingers, saying 
softly: 


200 


YELLOW STAR 


“ Do you know, dears, I can love 
these clothes! ” 

There was one more gift, that came by 
mail on the very day of fate itself. It 
was a box just long enough to hold the 
diploma, the sandal-wood fan, the ivory 
comb, and any treasures worthy a place 
with these. It was cunningly made by 
hand out of fragrant, warm-hearted 
cedar-wood, fitted with a tiny lock and 
key, and decorated with a knife in con- 
ventionalized designs, chief of which was 
the recurring device of a five-pointed 
star. Doris and Cynthia were the only 
ones privileged to admire Ethan's gift. 

Next to the bride in the affections of 
rural New England stands the fair girl 
graduate, and that June day in Laurel 
was apparently quite given over to the 
triumphant parade of simple-hearted 
youth. In many a modest home, solici- 


AN END AND A BEGINNING 201 

tous mothers were robing and adorning 
their daughters as if for the altar itself, 
and that evening in the town hall it 
seemed as if every soul in the village, old 
and young, rich and poor, must be press- 
ing into a seat or peering curiously in at 
open door or window. 

And now the orchestra struck up and 
the platform began to fill — that platform 
fluttering with banners and banked with 
the dark-green, glossy leaves and rosy 
chalices of the mountain laurel that 
gave the village its name. Pete Holley, 
a strapping youth of color, and star of 
the football team, took his place with 
dignity. Mary Maloney, the washer- 
woman’s daughter, more elaborately 
dressed than most, sat happily in the 
front row next to demure Doris, whose 
piano solo made a pleasing variation in 
the programme. 

Stella, too, had a “ part ” — she and 


202 


YELLOW STAR 


Rosey Bernstein led their class; and those 
who saw her on that day of days will 
long remember the tall, swaying figure, 
the gliding step, the vivid, dark face with 
its touch of foreign distinction among the 
rosy village girls, and most of all the 
tender, rhythmic tones that rang so true 
in her touching farewell to school days 
and to the comrades of that golden time. 

For Yellow Star had made her difficult 
decision — to go back to her own people 
and do for them what she could. There 
had come, in the early spring, a cry for 
help — another dingy scrawl in scarce 
legible Dakota from the Indian camp on 
Cherry Creek. Blue Earth had a “ bad 
heart; ” her husband, Young Eagle, had 
left her and gone across the Big Water 
with the show; she had a baby girl now, 
and the boy was five years old. She 
wanted them to “ walk the white man’s 
road,” and she wanted The-One-who-was- 


AN END AND A BEGINNING 203 


left-Alive to come and live with her, and 
teach her how to teach her children. 
There were many women in the camp, she 
said, who needed such help. 

After a sleepless night with the letter 
under her pillow, the girl had shown it to 
her friends and asked their advice. In 
her heart, she knew that there was only 
one answer possible, and they read her 
decision in her face. Of course, Doris and 
Cynthia cried a little, and squeezed her 
hands, and begged her “not to give up her 
plans, darling; ” while Miss Sophia held 
her peace with remarkable consistency 
and success. But Doctor Brown promptly 
hunted up Mr. Parker, and the two had 
an important conference. 

“ I can see she means to go, and it may 
be the best thing to do, for a time, at any 
rate,” the Doctor admitted, gruffly. “ But 
there’s just one thing about it; that girl 
is not going into an Indian camp without 


204 


YELLOW STAR 


position or backing. She’s too handsome, 
for one thing; and too young and trust- 
ing altogether. Young as she is, Stella 
is competent to fill a good place in the 
Government Indian Service, and that 
she must have! ” 

“ I’ve been telling my wife I’d like 
nothing better than to send the girl 
through college, if she wants to go,” 
demurred Mr. Parker. “ I think she 
could persuade my girl to go with her — 
there or anywhere! Say, Doc! are you 
dead sure she ought to butt in amongst 
a lot of half-savage Sioux — a girl who 
would make a place for herself in any 
community? ” 

“ I don’t know much about the Ameri- 
can Indian, but judging from our Stella, 
there must be good stuff in the breed,” 
answered the Doctor, stanchly. “ She’d 
make a magnificent nurse — doctor, per- 
haps; but she’s too young to begin 


AN END AND A BEGINNING 205 

training yet awhile. Better let her try 
it out west for a year or two; she will, 
anyway; she’s made up her mind, and 
you know what that means. What I 
came over to ask you is have you any 
wires to pull that’ll land our little girl in 
the Indian Service? What? ” 

“ Sure,” assented Mr. Parker, heartily. 
“ There’s Senator Morton; he’ll do any- 
thing for me — within reason, of course. 
We’ll fix it up in no time.” 

When Stella herself was cautiously con- 
sulted, a fortnight later, she declared that 
she did not know enough to teach and 
would rather not take a school position. 
She wanted to live right in the camp, she 
said, close to the people; to help the poor, 
ignorant women and children, like Blue 
Earth and her babies. 

“ Then you want to be a field matron,” 
pronounced the Doctor, who had been 
studying the subject. “ Six hundred a 


206 


YELLOW STAR 


year and the right to draw on the agency 
for supplies — soap and buckets and 
rations for sick people and all that. 
The work just what you would be doing 
anyway, and the whole United States 
Government back of you. That’s the 
talk.” 

And so it came about that our eighteen- 
year-old Indian girl delivered her valedic- 
tory with her appointment as field matron 
at Cherry Creek pinned inside her white 
frock, right over the loving heart that 
beat high with the hope of service. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE SCENE SHIFTS 

C HERRY CREEK is one of those 
erratic streams that flow eastward 
into the brown Missouri across the 
billowing plains — now a mere wavy line 
of timber fringing a dry ravine; again an 
angry yellow flood that drowns box- 
elder and wild cherry and washes the feet 
of the slim young cottonwoods. 

The sun-brimmed solitude of a Sep- 
tember day enfolded the two girls, Blue 
Earth and Yellow Star — for, although 
mother of a five-year-old boy, the de- 
serted wife of Young Eagle was in reality 
not so much older than her friend — as 
they happily gathered red-and-yellow 
Dakota plums in the rustling thickets 
away up the creek. The young mother 


208 


YELLOW STAR 


was quaintly robed in a loose, wide- 
sleeved “ Dakota gown ” of Turkey red 
calico, while the young maid was more 
trimly clad in one of the plain, indigo- 
blue prints that she had last worn in Miss 
Sophia’s kitchen. Only the freedom of 
the new life was symbolized and expressed 
by sleeves rolled over the dimpled, brown 
elbows, uncovered, glossy head, and soft, 
richly embroidered moccasins on the 
slender feet. 

The honey-sweet plums, a peck or 
more, had been harvested in a wide- 
mouthed cotton sack. “ Let me carry it 
— you have the baby!” cried Yellow 
Star, gayly tossing the sack over one 
shoulder, while the other picked up a 
placid bundle rolled in a patchwork quilt 
from under the wild plum tree, and with 
much maternal cooing and chattering 
proceeded to secure it on her back, in the 
folds of the bright shawl she wore. 



*' I was only digging medicine,” the elf soberly announced. 
Page 209. 




THE SCENE SHIFTS 


209 


“ Chas-kay! Chas-ka-a-ay! Where is 
the little rascal? ” she scolded, good- 
humoredly; and Yellow Star took up the 
musical call and sent it ringing through 
the ravines. In a minute or so, there 
came obediently stumbling up the slip- 
pery bank a queer little nondescript 
figure, attired in nothing but a green 
calico shirt and a pair of tiny moccasins, 
its two tight braids of black hair tied up 
with red flannel, and the round face of a 
shining cinnamon brown set with two 
black gems, in the shape of a pair of 
sparkling, mischievous eyes. 

“ I was only digging medicine,” the elf 
soberly announced; “ good medicine for 
The-One- who- was-left- Alive ! ” He held 
up a long, straggling root, and looked so 
irresistibly important that both girls burst 
into peals of tuneful laughter. 

“ We’ll take it to show Grandmother,” 
declared the one so favored, whose 


210 


YELLOW STAR 


botanical studies had already sug- 
gested to her to penetrate, if possible, 
the mysteries of the Dakota herbalist. 
She seized his little, earth-stained hand 
and all three set out for the camp 
— a huddle of log cabins, looking for 
all the world like the “ cob houses ” 
of children, interspersed with an oc- 
casional brush arbor or rude corral, and 
with many of the white, conical teepees 
of the Sioux. 

Glimpsed in the distance, under a sky 
quivering with heat and against a wide 
background of sunburnt grass, the whole 
looked more like a toy village than any- 
thing real and serious, at all events to the 
new-comer, who, with all her earnestness 
of purpose, had fallen to some degree 
under the spell of that colorful, elemental 
existence. 

The zest of the open spaces and the 
free winds, the absence of clocks and bells 


THE SCENE SHIFTS 


211 


and whistles and other insistent re- 
minders and regulators of our time- 
slavery, the fascinating simplicity and 
friendliness of the dark-faced, smiling 
people — her people — in their easy, pic- 
turesque garb, all these had seemed so 
restful, so almost intoxicating, after 
the set tasks of many well-ordered 
years. 

When they reached camp and threw 
down their burdens under the shade of a 
large arbor of boughs, where an old 
woman with gray witch-locks flying loose 
and a skin like dark-brown parchment 
looked up from her eternal moccasin- 
mending, and a long-haired dog not much 
bigger than a rat flew to greet them with 
all but articulate cries of joy — then, in- 
deed, they were at home! 

“ Sh-h-h-Sheka! ” Blue Earth was 
tired and hungry, and drove off the dog 
with a rush of angry sibilants. 


212 


YELLOW STAR 


“ Here, Sheka, Sheka! Poor little 
thing," coaxed Yellow Star, pitifully. 

“ How many did you get? " demanded 
Grandmother, reaching greedily for the 
sack. “ The Blue-Coat has been here 
with a paper; I think it is from the Little 
Father. I gave him coffee and bread, 
and he told me all the news. Here is 
the paper," and she drew it from her 
wide sleeve and held it toward the 
girl. 

Yellow Star took the agent's letter 
and glanced it over as she stood, while the 
others, Chaskay and Sheka included, 
gazed steadily into her thoughtful face 
with frank curiosity. 

“It is only to say that the sewing- 
machines will not be here until next 
month. I sha'n't wait for them; the 
women are coming to-morrow, and there's 
plenty of hand sewing for the present," 
and she entered the little house with 


THE SCENE SHIFTS 


213 


quite a different air from that of the plum 
thicket. 

Certainly the Indian agent, at his first 
interview some weeks earlier, had not to 
complain of any lack of dignity in the 
young field matron. 

“ You understand that suitable quar- 
ters will be provided for you, Miss — ah! 
— Miss Waring,” he had drawled, keep- 
ing his heavy-lidded eyes upon her face 
with a persistency that was not alto- 
gether pleasant. 

(“ First Indian girl I ever Miss’d,” he 
acknowledged later to his grinning cronies 
in the office, “ and it came sort of hard. 
Nothing else for it, though. She’s con- 
siderable of a lady, she is! ” 

“ Considerable to look at, too, I sh’d 
say,” Jack Pepper mumbled under his 
breath.) 

“ I expect to stay with my friend, 
Young Eagle’s wife, in her house on 


214 


YELLOW STAR 


Cherry Creek,” Stella had replied, simply. 
“ Her grandmother will live with us.” 

“ Hum-ha . . . Miss — ah! — Waring, 
if you have quite made up your mind to 
that, we shall have to make some im- 
provements on the house. It’s an ordinary 
log^ cabin, isn’t it, Mr. Pepper? . . . one 
room? . . . Two? That’s good. Well, 
I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We will build 
a frame addition 16 by 20 feet, for the field 
matron’s private apartment, with three 
windows and a good floor; lay floors in 
the other two rooms and put on a good, 
shingled roof. With these additions, I 
think you ought to be fairly comfort- 
able.” 

“ Thank you, Major; that will be quite 
satisfactory,” Stella had answered, 
calmly. 

“ And about the furniture ” (still keep- 
ing a furtive eye upon her face) — 
“Mr. Pepper, will you take this — ah! — 


THE SCENE SHIFTS 


215 


this young lady to the warehouse and help 
her make out a list of her needs in that 
line? We supply only the necessaries, of 
course : iron beds with mattress and 
blankets, tables, kitchen chairs, stoves, 
dishes and so forth. If there is anything 
more that I can do for you, Miss Waring, 
I shall be happy to see you at any time.'” 

Possibly the “ Little Father ” would 
not have been quite so bland and accom- 
modating if he had not had in his desk 
at that moment a letter from Washing- 
ton, containing very plain instructions as 
to the conveniences to be supplied and 
the official courtesies to be extended to 
the newly appointed field matron, Miss 
Stella Waring. The good Doctor’s pre- 
cautions were already justified. 

The first meeting of the Cherry Creek 
sewing circle was a decided success — 
that is to say, the first ever held there 


216 


YELLOW STAR 


under the civilizing auspices of a paternal 
Government, since from time immemorial 
the Sioux women have been accustomed 
to get together in the fashion common to 
all other women under the sun. For 
nobody knows how many hundreds of 
years they have plied their feminine 
implements — such as awl of bone and 
sinew of deer — and with dyed quills of 
the porcupine and hand-wrought or 
trader-bought beads, with skins tanned 
to a velvety softness or costly broadcloth 
of red and blue, have made and decorated 
their native finery with no mean skill, the 
while their tongues were busy with soft 
syllables of domestic chat and village 
gossip, after the universal feminine pat- 
tern. 

The time was now ripe, it seemed, for 
some advance along these time-honored 
lines. Indeed, this small settlement on 
Cherry Creek is still among the most 


THE SCENE SHIFTS 


217 


primitive on the whole Sioux reservation, 
having no day-school or settled mission 
of its own, and several of the women had 
expressed a wish to learn of their sophis- 
ticated sister the complicated art of the 
white woman’s dress-making. 

So here they were, gathered under the 
picturesque brush arbor to the number of 
a score or more, the younger attired as 
gayly as tropical birds, the elder in sober 
plumage of dingy browns and grays, all 
with demurely drooping plaits of hair 
and shoulders modestly draped in the 
invariable shawl. Most were primly 
seated on common wooden chairs, while 
a few of the older and more conservative 
preferred a blanket on the hard-trodden 
earth floor. 

Stella had a table full of work cut out 
and basted; puritanical checked gingham 
dresses and wide print aprons, together 
with boxes of thimbles and needles and 


218 


YELLOW STAR 


thread; and the lesson proceeded, at first 
with some constraint, but soon with a 
loosening of tongues and a torrent of soft 
laughter and musical dialect. 

Of course, all who had babies had 
brought them on their patient backs, and 
several youngsters of Chaskay’s age or 
younger were tumbling about the floor 
or running races over the sunshiny prairie. 
There were almost as many dogs as 
children, and a certain Miss Day, who 
had neither, appeared with the pretty, 
striped face of her pet ’coon peeping 
coquettishly over one shoulder. 

Presently refreshments were served 
in orderly fashion by the two young 
hostesses — tea, boiled rice flavored with 
meat, the plums gathered the day before, 
and a quantity of small, flaky biscuit 
baked that morning by Yellow Star. 

“ I should like to make biscuit like 
those,” Miss Day remarked, after an 


THE SCENE SHIFTS 219 

astonishing number had been con- 
sumed. 

11 Can you teach me to make the spongy 
bread of the white people? ” asked an- 
other. 

“ My husband has often asked for the 
apple-pie he had at school,” chimed in a 
little bride. 

“ We will have a cooking-class,” 
laughed the young field matron, “ and 
learn to make all these and many more. 
You must all keep chickens and milk a 
cow or two; then we can have ever so 
many good things — things fit to build 
strong bodies for your children.” 

“ If only the Little Father would not 
take them all away from us, as soon as 
they can walk, almost, to fill his school! ” 
mourned an older woman. 

“ Did you know that the Little Father 
had given his permission for a dance to- 
night? ” whispered a flighty girl to Blue 


220 


YELLOW STAR 


Earth, whose face lighted up quickly at 
the news. Then she glanced half guiltily 
at her friend, justly fearing that the 
Indian dance might be under a ban. The 
comfortable house and abundance of food, 
to say nothing of sympathetic compan- 
ionship, were too good to risk lightly. 

“ But you went to the white people’s 
dances when you were in the East,” she 
pleaded, after the others had gone, and 
the slow, teasing throbs of the dance- 
drum resounded through the village. 

“ That’s quite different,” Yellow Star 
explained. “ We want our people to for- 
get these exciting customs, and care for 
better things,” she reasoned, gently. 

“But I’m not going to dance; I only 
want to look on a little while,” begged 
Blue Earth, as humbly as a child. 

“All the white people do that; even 
the Little Father himself,” pronounced 
Grandmother. 


THE SCENE SHIFTS 


221 


“ Then, will you promise to come home 
as soon as it is dark? ” 

“ Oh, yes! ” cried the other, eagerly. 

But, like another Cinderella, she for- 
got, and lingered near an open window of 
the large, circular dance-house, her baby 
asleep on her back, gazing fascinated 
on the gorgeous, barbaric spectacle of 
painted, half-clad men executing their 
wonderful steps and poses, till aroused by 
a touch on her arm and a sweet, reproach- 
ful voice in her ear. And this is the true 
story of how the field matron chanced to 
be observed by old Standing Cloud and 
others, in the outer circle of the Grass 
Dance after dark of a balmy September 
evening, a fact which came duly to Jack 
Pepper’s ears and made her some little 
trouble, later on. 


CHAPTER XVI 


BY RETURN OF POST 

Laurel, April thirtieth. 

S TELLA darling: If you only 
knew how we miss you here in 
Laurel! It seems like years since 
you went away; can it be it’s only nine 
months? And you don’t write half as 
often as you promised. I wonder what 
you are really and truly up to! 

“ Have you picked out your allotment 
yet? Be sure and get a good one. Oh, 
how I wish I were twenty-one this 
minute! Daddy perfectly understands 
that the very day I come of age I shall 
start on the long journey to Dakota, to 
join my dear friend Stella and stock that 
cattle ranch. 

“ Of course, you will want to hear all 


BY RETURN OF POST 223 

the news. Doris has been spending two 
weeks in Boston with her uncle — the 
rich one. What do you think? she went 
to the Symphony Orchestra twice, and to 
the opera once, and to two — no, three 
dances! She has the loveliest braided 
suit in a perfectly exquisite shade of 
blue; and a set of chinchilla furs for 
Christmas; and two new party dresses 
and a pale-blue evening cape lined with 
salmon that is simply a dream. I 
can’t tell you half. Doris is getting to be 
a regular society girl; and that, you know, 
Jibby, I never wanted to be and never 
will. 

“ Mother bought me a handsome suit, 
too — mine is the new copper shade — 
and a stylish hat; and Daddy would have 
taken me to New York on his last trip, 
but just then poor old Scotty had to 
break his leg, and of course I wouldn’t 
stir for worlds . 


224 


YELLOW STAR 


“ Oh, I must tell you all about it! 
Just fancy! Ethan Honey happened to be 
in town over Easter, stopping with Uncle 
Si; and you know there isn’t any vet in 
Laurel; and so, I just ’phoned him — I 
was almost crazy, of course — and asked 
what should I do! He was perfectly 
splendid; got to the house in less than 
half an hour, and set the leg so that it’s 
practically as good as new! Wasn’t it 
clever of the dear boy? They say he’s 
thought everything of at the medical 
school, and bound to make a name for 
himself, some day. 

“ Speaking of Uncle Si, he hasn’t been 
quite as well as usual this winter; ‘ kinder 
off the hooks,’ as he says. Mother 
Brown is trying to persuade him that he 
oughtn’t to live out there all alone any 
longer. Uncle Si says ‘ it’s all-fired 
lonesome since the gals stopped cornin’ ’ 
and if you ‘ had a hankerin’ after mis- 


BY RETURN OF POST 


225 


sionary work, he could V showed you 
where you could put in your best licks, 
right here at hum/ He means looking 
after him, of course; did you ever hear of 
anything so selfish? But old people are 
always selfish, I think. 

“ Grandma Brown says that a girl 
that’d disappint her own pa and hurt his 
feelin’s for the sake of a outlandish hound 
dog hadn’t ought to have a pa. You 
know she never liked me so very well, 
anyway. She’s always telling Doris how 
much better you used to do things. Doris 
says, if she didn’t love you dearly, she’d 
have been sick to death of hearing your 
name, long before this. 

“ You asked me in two or three of your 
letters about Miss Sophia. I don’t see 
why you care so much about Miss Sophia; 
she never did anything for you if she could 
possibly help it. She never liked me, 
either; I went to see her, entirely for 


226 


YELLOW STAR 


your sake, dear, about a week ago. Seems 
to me she’s getting kind of old and feeble; 
and one funny thing, she didn’t scold a 
bit, not even when Scotty would squeeze 
past me and put his paw right up on her 
black cashmere lap. I don’t see how he 
ever dared. She asked me twice, when I 
heard from you last. 

“ Miss Morrison was in town the other 
day. She inquired after you the very 
first thing, of course. Miss Morrison 
thinks it was very fine and noble in you 
to go out to Cherry Creek. 

“ Why do you never say a word about 
the boys? Aren’t there any nice ones at 
all? Of course, you know how it is here; 
they’re all devoted to Doris! The next 
thing we’ll hear will be that she’s engaged! 
Jibby, darling, I’m just as sure as ever 
that I shall never, never want to get mar- 
ried. You will wait for me, won’t you? 
Wait till I’m twenty-one, I mean, and 


BY RETURN OF POST 227 

we can live together all the rest of our 
lives. 

“ Your own 

“ Cynthia. 

“ P. S. By the way, Ethan has grown 
ever so much handsomer since you saw 
him last. He looks years older and — 
and — oh, you know what I mean! 

“ C. P. 

“ N. B. Jibby, the minute you get this 
letter I want you to sit right down and 
tell me just what you are doing, and 
answer every single question, or Pll 
never forgive you. 

“ Sin.” 

“ Cherry Creek, May the eighth. 

“My dearest Cynthia: About half 
an hour ago, a girl you used to know was 
looking out of the window of her little 
prairie home. Such a funny little home, 
just one big room all shining yellow pine, 


228 


YELLOW STAR 


with skins and rag rugs on the bare pine 
floor, a closet curtained off with dark blue 
calico, a black iron bed and a wash- 
stand and a trunk and some book-shelves 
built out of packing-boxes. Oh, and a lot 
of Indian bead-work on the walls, and a 
pine table covered with a Navaho blanket, 
and on it some old school-books and 
papers and pens and ink; and right over 
it a class picture in a frame — the class 
of 19 — at Laurel academy! 

“ The girl, as I said before, was looking 
out of the window; just watching the 
green creep over the prairie like an 
emerald fire kindled by the sun, and 
following the white road with her eyes as 
far as she could — the road that leads to 
the agency and the railroad and civiliza- 
tion. 

“ While she looked, a black speck 
appeared away out on that road. The 
speck grew bigger; soon it turned into a 


BY RETURN OF POST 229 

lumber wagon drawn by two shaggy 
ponies and driven by a tall, dark man in 
the navy-blue uniform of the Indian 
Police, with a shining shield on his 
breast that flashed in the sun. 

“In a few minutes she heard the rattle 
of wheels, and then the camp dogs ran 
out to meet the good policeman with 
welcoming barks, and the girl left her 
window and went to the door that 
opened on the green prairie. For there 
are two doors in the yellow pine house; the 
other one leads right into a log kitchen 
where a tin coffee pot stood on the stove 
and an old woman squatted close by, 
tending a dear little baby, while the 
baby’s mother, in a red dress made like 
a kimono, was piecing a calico quilt. 

“ Well, the policeman pulled up his 
rough little ponies right in front of the 
door, threw down the lines and began 
handing out beef and flour and other 


230 


YELLOW STAR 


things, which the woman in the red 
kimono carried into the house. Then, 
last of all, he put his hand in his breast 
pocket, took out two letters and gave 
them to the girl. After that, he saluted 
and drove away again. 

“ The girl sat down on the high door- 
sill and read her letters; one made her 
laugh out loud, to the great surprise of a 
very small dog who had curled up on a 
corner of her skirt. The letter was from 
her friend — her dearest, far-away friend 
in the New England hills. And now she 
is going to sit down at her table with the 
gay blanket cover, facing the class picture, 
and write her answer. 

“ I hope this doesn’t sound homesick, 
Cynthia and Doris — for this letter is to 
Doris, too — but you know how it is in 
the spring; how the people and the things 
that are far away seem to pull at your 
heart. If I were back there in Laurel, 


BY RETURN OF POST 231 

I should be dreaming of Dakota; and it 

is wonderful out here, girls! I wish you 

could see the great, furry anemones and 

the colt's-foot and verbenas and all the 

other purple and gold-colored things 

that follow each other in a mad scamper 

over the wavy bluffs. And it seems as if 

I had never drawn a real, deep breath 

anywhere but here. It's like the ocean 

wind without the salt in it. 

“ And Fm very fond of the people, 

though they are provoking, sometimes. 

They forget so — just like children. And 

Sir Walter mustn't be jealous, but you 

ought to know my Sheka — that means 

‘ Poor Little Thing.' He never leaves 

me if he can help it, and he's just exactly 

« 

like a real person. 

“ I don't think I ever told you about 
the time we had getting our Chaskay into 
school. All the children have to go now 
as soon as they are five, and the mothers 


232 


YELLOW STAR 


put off that fifth birthday just as long as 
they can; but Chaskay was five last 
summer, and in the fall the policeman 
came for him to go to the boarding- 
school. Well, it was dreadful! Blue 
Earth wailed, and Grandmother sang the 
old Indian songs and shook her fist in the 
policeman’s face, and the poor little 
fellow was scared out of his wits and 
screamed till I was frightened, myself. 

“ Then I had an idea, and I said:- 
‘ Why not take him every day to the 
day school in Ring Thunder’s camp? 
He’s too little to leave his mother at 
night; why, he can’t even dress himself 
yet.’ 

“ So it was settled, and we two take 
turns carrying him on horseback, five 
miles each way, morning and evening. 
Blue Earth rides her spotted pony, 

‘ Baby,’ and I my iron-gray pacer, ‘ Old 
Soup,’ the people call him, because he 


BY RETURN OF POST 


233 


goes from side to side, just like stirring 
something in a pot. 

“ It was glorious fun while the fine 
weather lasted. I don’t mind coyotes 
a bit, and I got used to the rattlesnakes 
after awhile, remembering Ethan’s; but 
a five-mile ride in a Dakota blizzard isn’t 
any fun, especially with a child on the 
saddle in front of you, and you with your 
hands full to keep him from freezing. 
It’s better to just let the horse take his 
own course, anyway, when you can’t see 
the road a bit. 

“ But the worst was this spring, when 
the ice broke up on the White river. 
You see, the schoolhouse is on the other 
side of the river, and it was easy fording 
it in the fall, when the water is low, and 
easier still crossing on the ice; but one 
windy March day the ice broke up while 
we were on the further side. 

“ Good ‘ Old Soup ! 9 He just gathered 


234 


YELLOW STAR 


up his four feet into a bunch and jumped 
from cake to cake, floating and swirling 
around there in the black water, and once 
or twice he missed his footing and went in 
deep enough to wet my toes in the stir- 
rups. I can tell you, girls, I was glad 
enough when he scrambled out on the 
other side. And wasn’t the boy brave? 
He never uttered a sound! 

“ There have been a great many sick 
people this spring — mostly with coughs 
and consumption. I take them beef-tea 
and milk gruel and rice and things, and 
it’s best to stay and see them eat it if you 
want to be sure. Especially if they’re 
women; they would so much rather give 
it to the men. 

“ One morning I was wakened out of a 
•sound sleep by a tap on the window-pane. 
The sun was shining brightly, but I 
looked at my dear little watch that always 
hangs at the head of my bed, and it was 


BY RETURN OF POST 


235 


only five o’clock. What do you suppose 
the woman said? — for it was a poor, old 
woman. ' My son is dying, and begs for 
some light biscuit right away! ’ 

“ So I got up and built the kitchen fire 
before even Grandmother was stirring, 
and the poor sick man had his last wish, 
I guess, for he really did die. He was a 
young man who had been away to school. 

“ There are several returned students 
here who are thankful to come and look at 
my magazines and my photographs, and 
sing hymns, and get me to explain things 
to them. If I knew a little more, I would 
try to have an evening class. They 
always treat me with respect and call me 
* Older Sister.’ Why, the other day one 
of them even asked my advice about 
getting married! What do you say to 
that? 

“ There are two or three I don’t like 
at all — half-breeds and white men. 


236 


YELLOW STAR 


One is an ' assistant farmer; ’ they are the 
men who are supposed to teach the 
Indians farming, but sometimes I think 
they don’t do much but run errands for 
the agent. This one’s name is Jack 
Pepper, and he visits this camp rather 
often. I don’t like his looks a bit, and I 
try to be out of the way when he comes. 

“ I make a great many calls, for I 
find the women like to have me come, and 
besides, it keeps them up to the mark in 
their housekeeping. Often the first thing 
I see, long before I get to the house, is a 
cloud of dust coming out of the front 
door. Then I know that some one has 
spied me coming, and is putting the one 
room in company trim. By the time I 
get there, it has not only been swept, 
but the beds neatly made, with fresh 
white pillow-cases, the dishes washed, the 
cupboard put in order, and perhaps, if I 
don’t hurry, the youngest child has its 


BY RETURN OF POST 


237 


face scrubbed and a clean dress slipped 
on over the old one. 

“ Give my love to all — especially 
darling Doris and all her family. I often 
think of Grandma Brown. You’ll think 
it funny, I suppose, but Grandmother 
here reminds me of her a good deal. Not 
her looks, of course, for she isn’t neat and 
nice a bit; her fingers are like claws and 
her hair like gray feathers, almost; but 
they both have a way of speaking right 
out and saying things that bite. 

“ I shake hands with you in my heart, 
as our people say. “ Stella. 

“ P. S. If you happen to see Doctor 
Ethan again, please give him my kind 
regards.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


PRAY FOR MY PEOPLE WHEN THE SUN 
GOES DOWN! ” 

O F course, Stella couldn’t put every- 
thing into a letter, and one of the 
things she didn’t mention was a 
regular proposal of marriage from the 
old chief, Standing Cloud. She called 
him “ old,” but he was really a rather 
fine-looking man of something over fifty. 
He had “ thrown away ” one wife in 
obedience to the law of the white man, 
and had then lost the other soon after- 
ward, and he had missed no detail of the 
appearance of the young school girl on 
that fateful evening when she had gone 
after Blue Earth to the dance house. For 
the minute that she had stood there, 
framed in the open window, the light of 


“PRAY FOR MY PEOPLE ” 239 

the fire had struck full upon her winsome 
face and tall, supple figure, bringing out 
every line and feature with almost start- 
ling distinctness. 

Standing Cloud was not a particularly 
progressive chief, but he knew a pretty 
girl when he saw her. This was a girl of 
his own people, after all, and an orphan 
at that; everybody knew her history, 
and such a man as he was not to be 
daunted by a few years of schooling. She 
had sense enough, probably, to appreciate 
the honor he intended to do her. 

His offer came in round-about fashion, 
first through the grandmother, as was 
fitting, and finally through Blue Earth, 
who, with many giggles and much tossing 
of the head, managed at last to convey 
some inkling of it to the astonished and 
indignant girl. 

“ That old man! ” she exclaimed, in 
disgust. “ I don’t see how you can have 


240 


YELLOW STAR 


the face to repeat such a thing. Why, 
how many wives has he had? ” 

“ Only two; and he hasn’t any now; 
and he’s a chief , you know.” 

“ That’s quite enough. I don’t wish 
to hear another word about him as long 
as I live! ” 

And Grandmother was left to smooth 
over the affair as best she might, invent- 
ing all manner of humble excuses to 
cover the unheard-of rejection of a man 
of such importance. 

Then there was Moses Blackstone, a 
serious young man who had passed some 
years in the mission boarding-school as 
its prize scholar, and was now a lay reader 
in the village, and a regular caller at the 
field matron’s home. In default of an 
evening school, she innocently encouraged 
him to sit by the hour at a corner of her 
table, poring over some old school-book, 
or stumbling over the long words in the 


PRAY FOR MY PEOPLE 


241 


illustrated magazines that came from her 
eastern friends. Occasionally he would 
even write letters on her stationery and 
frankly “ borrow ” her stamps; but 
Moses was really such a good young 
man, and so earnest and humble, that 
she lent him a helping hand whenever 
she could, with scarcely more self-con- 
sciousness than if he had been Chaskay’s 
age. 

If he took unusual pains with his dress 
of late, the fact had escaped her, as also 
that he was not at all a bad speaker in 
his native Dakota. His English was in- 
adequate, and she always made him talk 
to her in English, thus cruelly putting him 
at a disadvantage. 

Therefore Stella was honestly shocked 
when one day Grandmother slyly pressed 
into her hand a little folded note, and 
upon carelessly opening it, she found a 
regular love-letter, signed “ Moses.” 


242 


YELLOW STAR 


To tell the truth, it was very prettily 
and poetically expressed. “ I am thinking 
of something,” it began in the native 
tongue. “ I think of it night and day. 
It will not let me rest nor sleep. It is 
always of you that I think and of my 
longing to be near you, and my wish 
that we two might be one.” 

Stella was really most unreasonable. 
Her cheeks glowed and her black eyes 
snapped. She tore the pleading little note 
into tiny bits, and strewed it on the floor 
before Grandmother’s astonished old eyes. 
That was her answer. 

The missionary from the east who had 
stepped into Father Waring’s old shoes 
was far from finding them a fit. Though 
he had been there for several years, 
people still called him “ the new min- 
ister,” a circumstance which tells its own 
story to the discerning. Certainly his 


“PRAY FOR MY PEOPLE ” 243 

manner was a trifle dry, even when his 
intentions were most kind. 

It seemed to our heroine, who we know 
was sensitive to a fault, that everybody 
looked at her critically, even coldly, 
when she came to the agency church in 
her trim, tailor-made suit and tasteful 
little hat, and modestly took her seat 
among the shawled and hatless Indian 
women, or when, innocently conspicuous, 
she walked the one street on “ Issue Day,” 
with business-like intentness upon her 
various errands. 

She was fairly happy, upon the whole, 
among her own people at Cherry Creek, 
but with the “ white people,” who should 
have welcomed her in all sincerity as a 
fellow-worker, she felt lonely and ill at 
ease. It was just as if the agent and his 
employees, the minister, and most of all 
their wives, were continually saying 
among themselves: 


244 


YELLOW STAR 


“ How long do you suppose she’ll keep 
it up? Too well-dressed and too self- 
possessed for an Indian girl, anyway; 
looks as if she thought too much of her- 
self — needs taking down a peg.” 

This note of patronage and suspicion 
was so unlike the general attitude toward 
her in her New England home that Stella 
couldn’t help resenting it, and accordingly 
held her well-groomed head a trifle higher 
than before. There was only the little 
day-school teacher in Ring Thunder’s 
camp, Chaskay’s teacher — a simple, 
good-hearted girl, not much older or 
more experienced than Yellow Star her- 
self — these two got on together from the 
first. Stella fell into the habit of going 
over there on “ Old Soup ” to spend her 
Sundays, since she had actually come to 
dread meeting any of the agency people, 
and after poor Moses’ unwelcome pre- 
tensions she no longer cared to attend 


PRAY FOR MY PEOPLE 


245 


the rather primitive but always reverent 
little service in his large log cabin. 

Long before September came round 
again, Stella had learned that the annual 
church convocation would meet at “ our 
agency ” this year. This meant a great 
gathering of perhaps a thousand Indians 
who came from agencies hundreds of 
miles distant, traveling overland, for 
the most part, in picturesque canvas- 
topped wagons loaded with camp equip- 
age, toward the appointed meeting-place. 
It was the event of the year to all good 
Christian Indians, bringing social as well 
as spiritual inspiration, comfort, and 
cheer. 

Most of all, Stella looked forward to 
meeting the Bishop, whose face of lofty 
calm and sweetness, under its silvery 
crown of hair, floated high like a white 
cloud among dear memories of childhood 
days. In those days, he had been from 


246 


YELLOW STAR 


time to time a guest under their roof, 
giving to the very food he shared a 
sacramental savor, and as a small, shrink- 
ing, black-eyed maid she had never lost 
the sense of a grave and gentle Presence 
in the little white guest-chamber they 
called the “ Bishop's Room." 

And now the simple, loving prepara- 
tions were all complete. Not without 
self-sacrifice, a feast had been provided 
for the visitors, forage for the visitors' 
horses, fresh vestments for the clergy, and 
candles for the plain little altar. Near 
the little Gothic church at the agency 
rose a wide circle of teepees, looking as 
if a flight of great, white birds had sud- 
denly alighted upon the sunburned grass. 
Children ran joyously to and fro, men 
gathered in groups, matronly women bent 
over their camp-fires, and the soft music 
of their greetings was in the air. 

Before the church bell should ring to 


“PRAY FOR MY PEOPLE ” 247 

summon the dark-skinned congregation 
to their first service under the open sky, 
the Bishop sat at meat in the modest 
rectory, reaping the year’s harvest of 
rewards and perplexities, and now and 
then dropping a quiet seed of counsel, 
or straightening a tangled skein of 
anxiety. 

“ And where is my little Stella? ” he 
asked presently, with a smile. “ I under- 
stand that she has come back to Cherry 
Creek as a field matron.” 

“ I have heard no complaints of her 
work, Bishop,” the missionary acknowl- 
edged, frowning slightly nevertheless. “ I 
— a — I believe she is quite efficient; 
however, we do not see her at church as 
often as I could wish. Certainly I ex- 
pected her to-day, but we have seen 
nothing of her.” 

“ The truth is,” his wife added, rather 
sharply, “ it isn’t easy to get into touch 


248 


YELLOW STAR 


with Stella Waring. She — well — she’s 
almost too much the lady for Cherry 
Creek. Too well-dressed, even; I fancy 
people think she puts on airs. That good 
Moses Blackstone was quite seriously 
interested at one time; I really think 
Stella treated him badly. Don’t you 
think, Bishop, it’s apt to spoil them a 
little — this going east for an education? ” 

“ Spoil them? Why, yes, my dear 
lady; for hewers of wood and drawers of 
water no doubt it may spoil them. We 
must not expect them to slip back into 
quite the old place,” suggested the Bishop, 
mildly. “ It may even be possible that 
she has outgrown our good Moses. Stella 
was always a dear child; let me see — 
it’s just six years since I confirmed her. 
I should like very much to see her again.” 

The missionary parlor had quickly 
filled, meantime, with the Bishop’s friends 
and disciples of both races, among them 


“PRAY FOR MY PEOPLE ” 249 

Stella herself, her lithe, girlish figure half 
hidden behind a window curtain, her soft 
eyes fastened eagerly upon the closed 
door. At last a quick, decided step was 
heard, and the gracious form of the 
Bishop, as erect as of old but looking 
to the girl much frailer and older than 
she had remembered him, entered the 
crowded room. His keen, kind eyes, 
darting rapidly from one face to another, 
flashed instant recognition into her own, 
and almost before she knew it, Stella 
found herself standing before him, all 
a-tremble with timid happiness, and both 
slim, brown hands drawn into the 
Bishop’s strong clasp. 

“ Can this tall girl be my little Stella? ” 
she heard him say, while over a face in 
repose a little sad and stern there broke 
that smile like winter sunshine — a spirit 
radiance that none who saw it can ever 
forget. The rest fell back instinctively, 


250 


YELLOW STAR 


or else the Bishop drew her into a quiet 
corner, and for a minute they two were 
alone together. 

“ I hope I may hear that you are happy 
in your work for our poor people? ” began 
the Bishop, very gently. 

The quick tears shone in Stella’s ex- 
pressive eyes. 

“ I’m sorry for them — I love them,” 
she murmured; “ but oh, Bishop! I 
do so miss dear Mother and Father 
Waring! ” 

“ I miss them, too,” the Bishop re- 
sponded, with such delicate sympathy 
in his tones that she found the courage to 
go on. 

“ I miss my — my friends in Laurel, 
too, Bishop! I — I’m afraid I don’t 
know enough for the work either; and 
yet I do truly want to help.” 

“ Of course you do, my child,” re- 
sponded the Bishop, “ Why, the very 


“ PRAY FOR MY PEOPLE ” 251 

name we gave you in baptism signifies a 
star — a light unto the Gentiles — a 
candle that shall be set upon a candle- 
stick to give light to all that are in the 
house. That is what we have always ex- 
pected of you. And even the name the 
old women gave you when they saved 
you from the sad fate that overtook your 
father’s people — The-One-who-was-left- 
Alive! You must have been kept alive 
for some good purpose; always re- 
member that, Stella. Have you ever 
thought that you might like to go 
back to the East for more training — 
perhaps for the training of a nurse? ” he 
went on, the keen eyes searching her 
grave, downcast face. 

Stella blushed more and more as it 
flashed upon her for the first time that the 
Bishop knew a good deal about the last 
six years of her life — had doubtless been 
in correspondence with Laurel friends. 


252 


YELLOW STAR 


“I — I think I would, Bishop; only 
not just yet. You see, I promised Blue 
Earth. And besides,” she went on, 
with desperate honesty, “ the white 
people here seem to think I know too 
much already. They seem not to like 
me because I — I suppose I am dif- 
ferent from the other Indian girls.” 

A sudden sternness drove the smile 
from the Bishop’s face, and for a moment 
or two he was quite silent, while the 
sweet-toned bell in the church tower 
began its call to sunset prayer. 

“ We will talk of this again,” he said, 
very gently. “ God bless you, my dear 
child! ” And he was gone. 

I ' With blurred eyes and dizzy brain 
Stella blindly followed the throng of 
gayly dressed, yet most quiet and reverent 
worshipers, young men and maidens, 
old men and children, mothers with babes 
in arms, and took her place in the great 


“ PRAY FOR MY PEOPLE ” 253 

circle upon the bare prairie sod. In the 
center of the ring the Bishop and his 
ministers, many of whom showed earnest 
dark faces above the snowy surplices, 
read the prayers of the church and gave 
utterance to the Christian hymns that 
rose in a great wave of devotion to the 
skies. The soft syllables of her native 
Dakota tongue seemed to fit the dear, 
familiar words, and no one who looked 
upon that scene could ever have guessed 
that only eighteen years before those 
tawny hills had been black with armed 
men, and that peaceful plain strewed with 
the tortured forms of the dead and dying. 

That needless, unpremeditated, pitiful 
slaughter of helpless children and women, 
so recklessly thrust in the way of the 
all-conquering white man! Stella tried 
not to dwell upon it; but whenever she 
was deeply moved the prostrate figure 
of the nameless mother would appear 


254 


YELLOW STAR 


before her eyes — an ample womanly 
form shrouded in a dark blanket, and 
always with the face hidden. 

To-night the crowd and the music 
and the beauty of the sunset and the 
Bishop’s words together had so wrought 
upon her, that the mother who sheltered 
her from the bullets seemed very near, 
and, forgetting pride and resentment and 
a certain secret longing, Stella gave her- 
self up wholly to the deep magic of the 
hour. In her soul there reverberated that 
phrase Father Waring had once repeated 
to them, as coming from the lips of one 
of his native helpers: 

“ Pray for my people when the sun 
goes down! ” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


FACING THE SUNRISE 

“ T DON’T see how they can breathe , 
do you? ” Stella prettily apologized 
to the agency doctor, her bright 
face a pleasant enough sight in his musty 
old office, its shelves filled with unwhole- 
some drugs reaching from floor to ceiling. 
Still a “ fresh-air ” enthusiast, as in the 
old Laurel days, she had insisted upon 
holding long consultations with this offi- 
cial, until he had simply been obliged to 
rouse himself and forsake the old routine 
of doling out these same drugs to a long 
line of Indians, — so far, at least, as 
Cherry Creek was concerned. Curious, 
how that young woman would take a 
personal interest in every single case. 

Accordingly, he had entrusted to her 


256 


YELLOW STAR 


a shelf of simple remedies, and had fallen 
into the habit of sending her full written 
directions for the care of patients in her 
neighborhood, especially the children. 
After she had brought the village almost 
single-handed through an epidemic of 
measles, with not a single fatality, he did 
not withhold from her the praise she cer- 
tainly deserved, for measles had been 
regarded as generally fatal among the 
camp children. 

Not satisfied with her accomplishments 
as a nurse, the young field matron had 
ideas of her own, which, as confidence 
grew, she imparted to her ally the doctor, 
and through him they gradually sifted 
into the office, and sometimes even ap- 
peared on official estimates and requisi- 
tions. It was, in fact, at her suggestion 
that the assistant farmers throughout the 
reservation had been instructed to teach 
milking and feeding calves by hand, so 


FACING THE SUNRISE 257 

that there might be milk for young 
children and motherless babies. An im- 
proved brand of vegetable seeds supplied 
in greater variety had likewise produced 
good results. Perhaps her best idea was 
that of building mud and stone chimneys 
on to the unventilated log cabins — a 
plan that might have saved many lives if 
there had been energy enough available 
to put it into effect. To be sure, there 
were plenty of tents for tuberculous 
patients, but to suggest moving from a 
house into a teepee would have been far 
too reactionary. 

Within eighteen months, she had be- 
come quite the autocrat of her own little 
village — old Standing Cloud being 
merely the figure-head. She had drilled 
her small household with infinite patience 
— and not without a long siege with 
Grandmother — to such “civilized” hab- 
its as regular meal-times, sitting down 


258 


YELLOW STAR 


at table, and a weekly wash-day. The 
children's bath night was duly observed, 
even though the ceremony must take 
place in a wooden wash-tub beside the 
kitchen stove. 

After all this, it really was hard that 
when their own darling baby — Little 
Girl, they called her — came down with 
acute bronchitis, Grandmother and even 
Blue Earth suddenly rebelled, and obsti- 
nately refused to have anything to do 
with the “ white man's way." The little 
stove was kept constantly stuffed with 
wood, and the baby lay gasping on the 
bed, rolled in unsavory quilts, reeking 
with heat and untouched for days by a 
drop of water. To all Stella's pleas for 
a warm bath, an open window, even in an 
adjoining room, she received the sullen 
reply: 

“ This is no time for fooling. It didn't 
matter when Little Girl was well, but 


FACING THE SUNRISE 259 

now she is very sick. If we are not care- 
ful, she will die! ” 

It was the dead of winter, but never- 
theless Stella rode the fifteen miles to the 
agency on her faithful pony, saw the 
doctor, and even persuaded him to ride 
back with her. Backed by his authority, 
she took bodily possession of the sick 
child, gave it an alcohol rub, air, and 
medicine, and watched through the long, 
silent night. 

Next morning, Little Girl was plainly 
worse. Grandmother crawled out-of- 
doors and tied a rag of red calico to a pole 
— her pitiful, unspoken prayer to the 
Powers! Her hoarse voice could be heard 
in the pauses of the wind, chanting a 
weird and mournful song. 

Stella inwardly trembled at the sound, 
and all the spirits of her ancestors seemed 
to upbraid her from the dull, resentful 
eyes of the tormented mother, who sat 


260 


YELLOW STAR 


huddled on the bed like a crouching ani- 
mal, staring at the intruder with a look 
that said plainly: 

“ You have an Indian skin, but a white 
heart. If my child dies, you will have 
killed her! ” 

The girl shut her eyes and her ears, and 
she, too, prayed. 

But she didn’t forget when the time 
came to give the doctor’s medicine. 
Hours passed like a bad dream, until, as 
she bent over the loved little form, a 
moment was enough to note the easier 
breathing, the beads of sweat on the 
pinched baby face. And that terror had 
gone by. 

It was now late August, and no rain 
had fallen on the reservation for many 
weeks. The waving sea of prairie grass, 
vivid in May as a green gem, was now of 
a rufous brown. Water-holes were sucked 


FACING THE SUNRISE 


261 


dry; the smaller creeks had quite for- 
saken their sandy beds, and many of the 
people had to drive their cattle and horses 
long miles to water, every morning and 
evening. 

The “ Little Father ” sat humped up 
in his office chair, with his coat off, dis- 
contentedly signing a batch of official 
papers and heaping objurgations on the 
weather, when Blue-Coat unceremoni- 
ously made his way in at the wide-open 
door and thrust a letter under the agent’s 
nose. The letter was from Cherry Creek. 

“ There is a large prairie fire to the 
west of us and the wind is blowing strong 
in our direction. I am sure the camp is 
in danger. Only the women and two or 
three old men are at home. Please send 
help at once. 


Respectfully, 

“ Stella Waring.” 


262 


YELLOW STAR 


“ Umph! ” he grunted, rousing him- 
self a trifle, however. “ That all so, Lone 
Bull? Well, tell Pepper to step here 
a minute. Hello, Jack! here’s a wind- 
fall for you. The little field matron 
out at Cherry Creek wants to be saved 
from a prairie fire. That’s a Number 
One allotment she’s picked out — better 
get a move on at once. I’m looking 
for a tenderfoot from the East to-day; 
team’s just gone to the landing after 
him; may take a drive out that way later 
on. Good luck to you! ” 

When Jack Pepper pulled up his steam- 
ing span in front of Stella’s home, the 
girl was out with “ Old Soup ” and a 
rusty plow, trying, with the help of Blue 
Earth and one or two others, to drive a 
furrow around the threatened camp. But 
it was evident that their unaccustomed 
hands were making hard work of it. The 


FACING THE SUNRISE 263 

advancing line of smoke and flame had 
drawn perceptibly nearer; a hot blast 
was blowing directly in their faces, and 
the red sun swam in an angry haze. The 
situation looked fairly serious. 

“ Hey, Stella! so you had to send for 
me, at last! ” was the young man’s 
familiar greeting. 

The girl looked past him with unseeing 
eyes. “ I wrote to the agent” she replied, 
shortly. 

“ Scared out of your wits, I’ll bet! 
Well, if I help you out of this scrape, 
what am I going to get for it, eh? ” he 
persisted, coming closer. 

Stella flashed one glance at the coarse 
face unpleasantly near her own, then at 
the winking red line of fire driven straight 
toward them on the wings of a strong 
wind. The fire was preferable, so far 
as she was concerned; but there were 
Blue Earth and her terrified babies and 


264 


YELLOW STAR 


poor, helpless old Grandmother! There 
were many others in the same plight. 
Doubtless they could escape by hasty 
flight; but these poor huts held their 
little all on earth, and must they be 
abandoned? What was to be done? 

“ Will you take this plow? or shall I? ” 
she blazed out. “ You can see for your- 
self there’s no time to lose.” 

“ Well, of all the high-an’-mighty airs! 
— and her nothin’ more than a squaw, 
when all’s said an’ done,” muttered the 
man. “ Say, Stella, you wait till the 
Major hears of your goin’s-on; ’tendin’ 
Injun dances late at night and all that 
sort of thing! I know more about you 
than you think I do, and maybe you’ll be 
sorry yet you tried to turn me down.” 

Stella, choking with wrath, caught up 
the plow-handles again without a word 
and chirruped to the patient pony. As 
her eyes mechanically swept the horizon, 


FACING THE SUNRISE 265 

though without hope of aid, they descried 
a rapidly driven team approaching from 
the direction of the agency. Jack saw 
her face lighten suddenly, and saw, too, 
what had done it. In hot haste he jerked 
a plow from the back of his wagon, 
hitched his waiting team, and started a 
furrow both wide and deep a few rods 
from the cabins, whose owners were 
running hither and thither in helpless 
terror. 

Half-blinded with smoke, and quiver- 
ing with outraged pride, Stella dropped 
her plow to confront the agent and 
another — a tall, well-knit youth who was 
hurrying forward with both hands out- 
stretched. 

“ Ethan — why, Ethan! ” 

“ I seem to be just in time, again, 
Stella,” was all he said, and the plow 
started with a running jerk as the gray 
pony felt a man’s hand on the bit. 


266 


YELLOW STAR 


Two hours later, when the danger was 
over, and the smoking prairie lay black 
in the path of the setting sun, two young 
people stood side by side on a bluff 
overlooking the Indian camp. 

“ What was that fellow saying to you 
just before we came up, anyway? I 
thought I noticed a spark in somebody’s 
eye that was considerably hotter than the 
prairie fire,” Ethan slyly observed. 

“ He ... he doesn’t know any better, 
I suppose,” Stella murmured. 

“ Looked to me as though he needed 
kicking, all right,” the young man cheer- 
fully assented, and something in the set 
of his jaw and the swing of his athletic 
shoulders hinted that Jack Pepper would 
do well to avoid his immediate neighbor- 
hood. 

“ Well, never mind him now. He isn’t 
worth it,” pursued her old friend. “ Don’t 
you want to hear all the news from home? 


FACING THE SUNRISE 267 

About the girls — and dear old Uncle Si? 
And your little ‘ wild orphan? ’ You 
know, I'm an orphan myself, Stella.” 

“ But you’re grown up,” she returned, 
not looking at him. 

“ So has the fawn grown up — and 
taken to the woods,” laughed the young 
man. “ Come, Stella, I’ve brought you 
a message. Guess who it’s from. No, 
not Cynthia this time; not even the 
old Doctor. I’ve brought you a message 
from — Miss Sophia! ” 

He paused to observe the effect of his 
words, in the soft, black eyes that seemed 
to widen and deepen gloriously under his 
steady gaze. 

“ Yes, Miss Sophia isn’t so young as 
she was — and there’s something in her, 
after all, that’s stronger than prejudice 
and pride. It must have been there 
always, buried so deep down that nobody 
ever found it out. She simply can’t hold 


268 


YELLOW STAR 


out any longer, all alone so. She wouldn’t 
write, dear, because she couldn’t; she 
sent me all this long way to find you, and 
tell you that she wants you to come 
home. Stella, will you come? ” 

“ Miss Sophia wants me,” breathed 
Yellow Star. It seemed impossible — 
unbelievable. In these few, short years, 
many people had wanted her, or seemed 
to want her; but Miss Sophia! 

For a full minute neither spoke. In 
the silence, the magical Dakota sunset 
blossomed rosy-red above the pair, who 
stood, as it were, cut off from all human 
companionship, a burned-out world under 
their feet, their heads in a paradise of 
color and ecstasy. 

“ And all that's best of dark and bright 
Meets in her aspect and her eyes!" 

Ethan hummed the old song under his 
breath. 


FACING THE SUNRISE 269 

“Oh!” the Indian girl burst out at 
last, with something of the old frank 
impetuosity. “ Do you know, Ethan, I 
seem to be two people again, just as in 
those first months in Laurel, when you 
teased me about having so many names ” 
— (Ethan gently shook his head). “I’m 
pulled two ways at once; I so want to 
really belong, and I can’t tell where I 
belong! I know, now, that I can’t do for 
my people what I once thought I could, 
here on the reservation; and yet, isn’t 
it my place? I wonder what the Bishop 
would say.” 

“ Well, what did he say? ” sturdily 
responded Ethan. 

“ He did — yes, he did tell me once I 
had better go back for more training — 
to learn to be a nurse.” 

“ Well, isn’t taking care of Miss Sophia 
pretty good training? I believe that just 
now, at any rate, you belong with her,” 


270 


YELLOW STAR 


he answered promptly, with a masculine 
finality that steadied her swimming 
thoughts. “ A lonely, loveless old woman 
needs you; you are all she has. Come 
home, dear; come home! ” 

“ Blue Earth told me yesterday that 
she’s going to be married again — to 
Moses Blackstone. She won’t need me 
any more,” half laughed, half sobbed the 
girl, recalling the dumb pleading that had 
so irritated her in those eyes of Moses’. 
She was all woman — our little Stella, 
and the personal note would not be 
denied. “ It can’t be just yet, of course; 
I must take a month or two to wind 
up everything ; but — yes — I’ll come ! ” 

They had turned their backs upon the 
tiny, primitive village, and were facing 
the eastern horizon, remote and lovely in 
the transforming after-glow. 

“ And you graduate from the medical 


FACING THE SUNRISE 271 

college when, Ethan? Isn't it next year? 
Are you really going to settle down in 
Laurel? ” 

“ Doctor Brown is anxious to divide 
his practice, but I haven't given him my 
answer yet," responded Ethan, his serious 
eyes upon the soft, averted cheek that 
had at last begun to burn with a delicate 
consciousness. 

“ You see, Stella, the place doesn't 
matter much," he went on, with tender 
confidence. “ Any place holds duties to 
fill a lifetime; it's the spirit that really 
counts. A doctor's heart ought to be 
as large as all humanity, don't you think 
so? I may go east; I may go west. I 
only know one thing surely ... I must 
follow my Star! " 

“ I allers sort o' mistrusted that Injuns 
was folks." This was Grandma Brown's 
comment, when she heard that Stella 


272 


YELLOW STAR 


had been sent for at last. “ Seems like 
there’s a sight of human nater in most 
all of us, — even in that Sophi' Spell- 
man!” 



SEP 20 1911 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 


SFP £p 19M 




